Underwriter choice and earnings management: evidence from seasoned equity offerings

Using a sample of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), this paper examines the association between the choice of financial intermediary and earnings management. We contend that with more stringent standards for certification and intense monitoring, highly prestigious underwriters restrict firms\u27 incentives for earnings management to protect their reputation and to avoid potential litigation risks, while firms with greater incentives for earnings management avoid strict monitoring by choosing low-quality underwriters. Consistent with our predictions, we find an inverse association between underwriter quality and issuers\u27 earnings management. In addition, we find that underwriter quality is positively related to SEOs\u27 post-issue performance, even after controlling for the effect of earnings management. We also find that firms with low underwriter prestige and high levels of earnings management underperform the most. However, the effect of underwriter choice on post-issue performance does not last long

Optimality and Duality for Multiobjective Fractional Programming Involvingn-Set Functions

AbstractWe consider a multiobjective fractional programming problem (MFP) involving vector-valued objectiven-set functions in which their numerators are different from each other, but their denominators are the same. By using the concept of proper efficiency, we establish optimality conditions and duality relations for our problem (MFP) under convexity assumptions on objective and constrained functions

A Dynamic Measure of Intentional Herd Behavior in Financial Markets

This paper suggests a dynamic measure of intentional herding, causing the excess volatility or even systemic risk in financial markets, which is based on a new concept of cumulative returns in the same direction as well as the collective behavior of all investors towards the market consensus. Differing from existing measures, the measure allows us to directly detect time-varying and market-wide intentional herding using the model of Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) (Engle, 2002) between the financial market and its components that is partially free of spurious herding due to the inclusion of the variables of the number of economic news announcements as a proxy of market information. Strong evidence in favor of the dynamic measure over the other measures is based on empirical application in the U.S. markets (DJIA and S&P100), supporting the tendency to exhibit time-varying intentional herding. Much more important is a finding that the impact of intentional herding on market volatility tends to be stronger during the periods of turbulent markets like the degradation of U.S. sovereign credit rating by S&P, and be more significant in S&P 100 than DJIA

A Dynamic Measure of Intentional Herd Behavior in Financial Markets

This paper suggests a dynamic measure of intentional herding, causing the excess volatility or even systemic risk in financial markets, which is based on a new concept of cumulative returns in the same direction as well as the collective behavior of all investors towards the market consensus. Differing from existing measures, the measure allows us to directly detect time-varying and market-wide intentional herding using the model of Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) (Engle, 2002) between the financial market and its components that is partially free of spurious herding due to the inclusion of the variables of the number of economic news announcements as a proxy of market information. Strong evidence in favor of the dynamic measure over the other measures is based on empirical application in the U.S. markets (DJIA and S&P100), supporting the tendency to exhibit time-varying intentional herding. Much more important is a finding that the impact of intentional herding on market volatility tends to be stronger during the periods of turbulent markets like the degradation of U.S. sovereign credit rating by S&P, and be more significant in S&P 100 than DJIA

EFFECTS OF TEMPERING AND PWHT ON MICROSTRUCTURES AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF SA508 GR.4N STEEL

Presented in this study are the variations of microstructures and mechanical properties with tempering and Post-Weld Heat Treatment (PWHT) conditions for SA508 Gr.4N steel used as Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) material. The blocks of model alloy were austenitized at the conventional temperature of 880 °C, then tempered and post-weld heat treated at four different conditions. The hardness and yield strength decrease with increased tempering and PWHT temperatures, but impact toughness is significantly improved, especially in the specimens tempered at 630 °C. The sample tempered at 630 °C with PWHT at 610 °C shows optimum mechanical properties in hardness, strength, and toughness, excluding only the transition property in the low temperature region. The microstructural observation and quantitative analysis of carbide size distribution show that the variations of mechanical properties are caused by the under-tempering and carbide coarsening which occurred during the heat treatment process. The introduction of PWHT results in the deterioration of the ductile-brittle transition property by an increase of coarse carbides controlling cleavage initiation, especially in the tempered state at 630 °C

Dieulafoy's Lesion of Jejunum: Presenting Small Bowel Mass and Stricture

Dieulafoy's lesion is an uncommon cause of gastrointestinal bleeding. Hemorrhage occurs through mucosal erosion from an abnormally dilated submucosal artery. Although Dieulafoy's lesion is usually located in the stomach, it may occur anywhere in the gastrointestinal tract. We report here on a case of jejunal Dieulafoy's lesion presenting as a mass and short segment stricture on CT and enteroclysis

Luciferase-Rose Bengal Conjugates for Single Oxygen Generation by Bioluminescence Resonant Energy Transfer

Conjugates of Rose Bengal and Renilla luciferase generated singlet oxygen upon binding with coelenterazine via bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET). Since the applications of conventional PDT have been limited to superficial lesions due to the limited light penetration in tissue, BRET activated PDT which does not require external light illumination may overcome the limitations of conventional PDT.115Ysciescopu

Down-regulation of phospholipase D during differentiation of mouse F9 teratocarcinoma cells

AbstractPhospholipase D has been recognized as playing an important role in signal transduction in many types of cells. We investigated the expression of phospholipase D during the differentiation of F9 embryonal teratocarcinoma cells. The ADP ribosylation factor-dependent phospholipase D activity, as measured by an in vitro assay, and H2O2-induced phospholipase D activity and phospholipase D protein content in whole cells were decreased during the differentiation of F9 cells induced by a combination of dibutyryl cyclic AMP and all-trans retinoic acid. In contrast, these changes were not observed when cells were induced by retinoic acid. These results suggest that down-regulation of phospholipase D protein is associated with differentiation of F9 cells to a parietal endoderm lineage