Strike Three: Umpires' Demand for Discrimination

We explore umpires' racial/ethnic preferences in the evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers. Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity. This effect only exists where there is little scrutiny of umpires' behavior -- in ballparks without computerized systems monitoring umpires' calls, at poorly attended games, and when the called pitch cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat. If a pitcher shares the home-plate umpire's race/ethnicity, he gives up fewer runs per game and improves his team's chance of winning. The results suggest that standard measures of salary discrimination that adjust for measured productivity may generally be flawed. We derive the magnitude of the bias generally and apply it to several examples.

Strike Three: Umpires' Demand for Discrimination

We explore how umpires' racial/ethnic preferences are expressed in their evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers. Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity. This effect only exists where there is little scrutiny of umpires' behavior – in ballparks without computerized systems monitoring umpires' calls, at poorly attended games, and when the called pitch cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat. If a pitcher shares the home-plate umpire's race/ethnicity, he gives up fewer hits, strikes out more batters, and improves his team's chance of winning. The general implication is that standard measures of salary discrimination that adjust for measured productivity may be flawed. We derive the magnitude of the bias generally and apply it to several examples.strategic interactions, worker evaluation, wage equations, economics of sports

Local Investors’ Preferences and Capital Structure

We provide evidence that publicly listed firms respond to capital supply conditions shaped by local investing preferences. The local supply of credit is higher and more stable in areas where demographics suggest that local investors prefer safer portfolios. We find that firms headquartered in these areas use more debt financing. The demographics-leverage relation is more pronounced for non-investment-grade and unrated firms that cannot easily tap public markets (about two-thirds of U.S. public companies). Analyses of firms’ financing activities around exogenous shocks to credit supplies – including interstate banking deregulation and the 2008-2009 financial crisis – support the capital supply effect. As demographics change slowly, local investors’ preferences may contribute to the heterogeneity and persistence of public firms’ capital structures

Strike three: umpires' demand for discrimination

We explore how umpires' racial/ethnic preferences are expressed in their evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers. Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity. This effect only exists where there is little scrutiny of umpires' behavior - in ballparks without computerized systems monitoring umpires' calls, at poorly attended games, and when the called pitch cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat. If a pitcher shares the home-plate umpire's race/ethnicity, he gives up fewer hits, strikes out more batters, and improves his team's chance of winning. The general implication is that standard measures of salary discrimination that adjust for measured productivity may be flawed. We derive the magnitude of the bias generally and apply it to several examples

Institutional trading during a wave of corporate scandals: 'Perfect payday'?

This paper examines the role of institutional trading during the option backdating scandal of 2006–2007. Unlike their inability to anticipate other corporate events, institutional investors as a group display negative abnormal trading imbalances (i.e., buy minus sell volumes) in anticipation of firm-specific backdating exposures. Consistent with informed trading, the underlying trades earn positive abnormal short- and long-term profits. Moreover, the negative abnormal imbalances are larger in magnitude when backdating is likely a more severe issue. Local institutions, in particular, display negative trading imbalances earlier in event-time and earn consistently higher trading profits than non-local institutions. Although we find some evidence of over-reaction following the arrival of information about the backdating scandal, these patterns are short-lived and exclusively due to the activity of non-local institutions. Overall, institutional investors behave as informed investors, particularly in local stocks, during this prolonged period of heightened uncertainty about corporate reporting and governance practices. •Institutional investors as a group sell stocks before public exposures of backdating.•These trading imbalances are larger when backdating is a more severe issue.•Consistent with informed trading, the underlying trades earn positive abnormal profit.•Local institutions sell earlier and earn higher trading profits than non-local ones.•There is some over-reaction, exclusively in the activity of non-local institutions

Analisis dan Perancangan Aplikasi Berbasis Web untuk Pengajuan Topik Tugas Akhir

Maranatha Christian University Bandung is one of the universities in Indonesia that has a Faculty of Information Technology. In the Faculty of Information Technology there is an Informatics Engineering Study Program. The thing that underlies this research is that there is currently no integration between the Practical Work courses and the Final Project courses. For this reason, this research will try to analyze and design one application that will be carried out. The hope of this research is to help the process of submitting practical work topics and students' final assignments so that data is integrated and the recording process is better because it uses a web-based application. This application is a web-based application so it can be used anytime and anywhere

Essays on the impact of institutional investors on market efficiency and corporate policies

textIn this dissertation, I explore the determinants and implications of the preferences of institutional investors. First, I examine whether institutional investors' preference for local investments is related to informational advantage. Analyzing the equity holdings of a large sample of actively managed mutual funds, I find evidence consistent with the mutual fund industry having a perception that local funds have an informational advantage. However, the portfolio of mutual funds' local holdings does not display significant superior performance relative to the portfolio of their distant holdings. Using a parsimonious model, I hypothesize that the profitability of local informational advantage will be low due to the price impact of trading when there is a relatively large population of local agents who trade on similar private information. Consistent with this hypothesis, I find that funds do earn superior returns on local stocks for which local capital is limited and hence the price impact of local trades is likely to be small. Second, I examine the preferences of institutional investors for firm policies and the relationship between these preferences and firm decisions. I find that institutional investors exhibit systematic differences in their preferences for financial and investment policies. Furthermore, these preferences are related to subsequent changes in the financial and investment policies of the firms they invest. In particular, a firm is more likely to decrease (increase) its leverage ratio if its current leverage is higher (lower) than the preferences of its institutional shareholders. A firm is also more likely to increase (decrease) its investment if its current investment ratio is lower (higher) than the preferences of its institutional shareholders. These findings suggest that the preferences of institutional shareholders are important determinants of corporate policies.Financ