Do Multinational And Local Corporations Differ In Their Leverage Policies? Evidence From The MENA Region

This paper examines the leverage policies of multinational corporations (MNCs) in comparison to those of local corporations in the MENA region during the period between 2006 and 2012. Our results show that MNCs have lower leverage levels than local firms. We argue that MNCs have higher information asymmetries than other firms. As a result, managerial opportunism may be higher in these firms, thereby minimizing their ability to raise debt. In case of local firms, we show that their debt ratios are not different from other firms. Furthermore, we also show that our results do not hold for those multinational firms that have lower agency problems. We show that, for a given level of information asymmetries (operational and informational complexity), debt ratios of multinational firms are more than other firms. Our results show no impact of the extent of information asymmetries on debt ratios of local firms.

Media Independence And Firm Performance: Evidence From Emerging Stock Markets

Can media have any influence on firm performance? Do firms incountries with more independent media perform better than firms with lessindependent media? This paper seeks to answer these questions and aims todocument the relationship between media independence and firm performance inemerging markets. Using a dataset fromtwenty-four emerging markets, we show a significantly positive relationshipbetween media independence and firm performance. We argue that independentmedia reduces information asymmetries for stock market participants.Consequently, it becomes hard for managers to expropriate, thereby improvingperformance of firms. We also show that the relationship between mediaindependence and firm performance is more pronounced in firms that have higheragency problem. For instance, our results show stronger impact of mediaindependence on firms with no dividend payouts, no analyst coverage,concentrated ownership, and higher level of operational complexity. It showsthat media can play a substitute for traditional governance mechanisms inemerging markets

Information Content Of Analyst Recommendations: Evidence From The Danish Biotechnology Sector

The purpose of this paper is to document the performance of analyst recommendations for biotechnology firms listed at the Copenhagen Stock Exchange during the period between 2001 and 2010.  Our results show that analysts are able to reveal value relevant information via their recommendations.  We report that buy recommendations are followed by significantly positive returns and sell recommendations are followed by significantly negative returns.  However, we also show that performance of analyst recommendations is not uniform across all firms.  It depends on the extent of information asymmetries present within firms.  We show that analyst recommendations contain no value for firms with the least level of transparency (lowest intellectual capital disclosure, lowest analyst coverage, and lowest frequency of recommendations).  However, as information environment improves, value of analyst recommendations also goes up. We recommend biotechnology firms to improve on their disclosure levels

Financial Centers And The Relationship Between ESG Disclosure And Firm Performance: Evidence From An Emerging Market

Is the disclosure of non-financial information, such as that related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG), important for firm performance in emerging markets? Does the extent of information asymmetries affect the way stock market participants react towards ESG disclosure? This paper answers these questions and shows that ESG disclosure is negatively related to firm performance in environments with lower information asymmetries. We argue that this negative relationship exists because ESG activities are considered as unrelated costs that reduce shareholders profits and wealth. Our results also show no significant impact of ESG disclosure on firm performance in environments with higher information asymmetries. Given that information is less reliable in environments with lower information asymmetries, it is very much possible that ESG disclosure is not valued by stock market participants

Corporate Reputation And Analyst Coverage: Evidence From Europe

Does corporate reputation affect analyst’s decision to cover a firm? This paper uses the data from Europe (Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey) to show that analyst coverage is an increasing function of corporate reputation during the period between 2008 and 2013. Our results are consistent with Gabbioneta et al. (2007) who show that corporate reputation increases the emotional appeal of a firm in the eyes of analysts. Furthermore, we also argue that investors are interested in firms with better reputation. It is, therefore, possible that investors demand analyst research for more these firms, thereby resulting in higher analyst coverage for these firms. Our results are robust in different sub-samples and in different estimation procedures

Political Instability and Inflation in Pakistan

This study investigates the effects of political instability on inflation in Pakistan. Applying the Generalized Method of Moments and using data from 1951-2007, we examine this link in two different models. The results of the ‘monetary’ model suggest that the effects of monetary determinants are rather marginal and that they depend upon the political environment of Pakistan. The ‘nonmonetary’ model’s findings explicitly establish a positive association between measures of political instability and inflation. This is further confirmed on analyses based on interactive dummies that reveal political instability significantly leading to high (above average) inflation.political instability, inflation, Pakistan

Wavelet-based techniques for speech recognition

In this thesis, new wavelet-based techniques have been developed for the extraction of features from speech signals for the purpose of automatic speech recognition (ASR). One of the advantages of the wavelet transform over the short time Fourier transform (STFT) is its capability to process non-stationary signals. Since speech signals are not strictly stationary the wavelet transform is a better choice for time-frequency transformation of these signals. In addition it has compactly supported basis functions, thereby reducing the amount of computation as opposed to STFT where an overlapping window is needed. [Continues.

Modeling and Implementation of A 6-Bit, 50MHz Pipelined ADC in CMOS

The pipelined ADC is a popular Nyquist-rate data converter due to its attractive feature of maintaining high accuracy at high conversion rate with low complexity and power consumption. The rapid growth of its application such as mobile system, digital video and high speed data acquisition is driving the pipelined ADC design towards higher speed, higher precision with lower supply voltage and power consumption. This thesis project aims at modeling and implementation of a pipelined ADC with high speed and low power consumption