Corporate Social Responsibility in Large Family and Founder Firms

Based on arguments about long-term orientation and corporate reputation, we argue that family and founder firms differ from other firms with regard to corporate social responsibility. Using Bayesian analysis, we then show that family and founder ownership are associated with a lower level of corporate social responsibility concerns, whereas ownership by institutional investors is associated with a higher level of corporate social responsibility concerns and a lower level of corporate social responsibility initiatives. We conclude that it makes sense to distinguish between family, founder and institutional investors and their roles as owners or managers when analyzing the effects of corporate governance on corporate social responsibility.corporate social responsibility;family firms;family management;family ownership;founder firms;long-term orientation

A Market Based Measure of Credit Quality and Banks' Performance During the Subprime Crisis

We propose a new method for measuring the quality of banks credit portfolios. This method makes use of information impounded in bank share prices by exploiting differences in their sensitivity to credit default swap spreads of borrowers of varying quality. The method allows us to derive a credit risk indicator (CRI), which is the perceived share of high risk exposures in a bank's portfolio. We estimate CRIs for the 150 largest U.S. bank holding companies and find that they have strong predictive power for the BHCs' performance during the subprime crisis, even after controlling for a variety of traditional asset quality proxies. Interestingly, we also find that the BHCs' aggregate CRI did not deteriorate since the beginning of the subprime crisis. This suggests that the market was aware of their (average) exposure to high risk credit.credit risk;asset quality;banks;subprime crisis

Direct printing of polymer microstructures on flat and spherical surfaces using a letterpress technique

We have developed a letterpress technique capable of printing polymer films with micrometer scale feature sizes onto flat or spherically shaped nonporous substrates. This printing technique deposits polymer only in desired regions thereby eliminating subsequent developing and subtraction steps. Flat or curved printing plates, which are fabricated from either rigid or deformable materials, are used to transfer thin molten polymer films onto flat target substrates. By deforming the printing plates into a spherical shape, it is also possible to print patterned films onto the concave side of a spherically deformed target substrate. These printed films serve as good resists for both wet chemical etching and reactive ion etching. Interferometric measurements of the polymer film thickness are used to probe physical mechanisms affecting printing instabilities, pattern fidelity, and edge resolution. Our experimental study indicates that this letterpress technique may prove suitable for high-throughput device fabrication involving large-area microelectronics

The complementarity of LEP, the Tevatron and the LHC in the search for a light MSSM Higgs boson

We study the properties of the Higgs boson sector in the MSSM, putting special emphasis on radiative effects which can affect the discovery potential of the LHC, Tevatron and/or LEP colliders. We concentrate on the V b b-bar channel, with V=Z or W, and on the channels with diphoton final states, which are the dominant ones for the search for a light Standard Model Higgs boson at LEP/Tevatron and LHC, respectively. By analyzing the regions of parameter space for which the searches in at least one of these colliders can be particularly difficult, we demonstrate the complementarity of these three colliders in the search for a light Higgs boson which couples in a relevant way to the W and Z gauge bosons (and hence plays a relevant role in the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking).Comment: 35 pages, including 11 Postscript figures, using JHEP.cl

Coronal lines and the warm X-ray absorber in Seyfert 1 Galaxies

The connection between the coronal lines and the warm absorber is examined systematically. In an earlier work it was found that the coronal line emitting plasma and the warm absorber gas share the same density and temperature. If there is a connection between the warm absorber gas and the forbidden high-ionization line (FHIL) plasma, one can use the profiles of coronal lines to derive the kinematics and dynamics of the warm absorber due to the high spectral resolution available in the optical range. Further support for a connection is a correlation between the equivalent width of [Fe X] 6375 and the ROSAT spectral index found for an optically selected sample. For X-ray selected objects with absorption edges observed by ASCA, we looked for a correlation between the coronal lines and the warm absorber gas. A direct correlation cannot be confirmed.Comment: Contributed talk presented at the Joint MPE,AIP,ESO workshop on NLS1s, Bad Honnef, Dec. 1999, to appear in New Astronomy Reviews; also available at http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/conferences/nls1-worksho

Evolution of Feedback Loops in Oscillatory Systems

Feedback loops are major components of biochemical systems. Many systems show multiple such (positive or negative) feedback loops. Nevertheless, very few quantitative analyses address the question how such multiple feedback loops evolved. Based on published models from the mitotic cycle in embryogenesis, we build a few case studies. Using a simple core architecture (transcription, phosphorylation and degradation), we define oscillatory models having either one positive feedback or one negative feedback, or both loops. With these models, we address the following questions about evolvability: could a system evolve from a simple model to a more complex one with a continuous transition in the parameter space? How do new feedback loops emerge without disrupting the proper function of the system? Our results show that progressive formation of a second feedback loop is possible without disturbing existing oscillatory behavior. For this process, the parameters of the system have to change during evolution to maintain predefined properties of oscillations like period and amplitude.Comment: Proceedings of the 2009 FOSBE conference in Denver, CO, USA. 4 page