Anatomy of a Meltdown

Figuring out what led to today\u27s economic mess could hold the best clues for moving forward - and averting the world\u27s next financial crisis

Bank Ties and Bond Market Access: Evidence on Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivity in Japan

The banking literature has established that banks can alleviate information asymmetries between lenders and borrowers, while the Q literature has used cash flow sensitivity analysis to test whether financing constraints hinder investment. This paper investigates whether bank ties in Japan were costly for mature and healthy firms in the 1980's and 1990's, and whether banks continued to facilitate investment once non-bank financing options became available. Using the explicit bond issuing criteria to solve the endogenous firm-sorting problem, I measure the investment-cash flow sensitivity of Japanese firms, and find it lowest for those firms known to have faced bond market constraints. I then find that the spread in sensitivity was much larger for main bank client firms, once bond market access is controlled for. This result, coupled with results on the relative profitability and bond activity of bank-affiliated firms, is consistent with banks capturing the net benefits of relationship lending during the period of bond market deregulation.

Game Changer

Why the rapidly evolving landscape for clients requires creative new moves from lawyers and the profession

Bank Ties and Firm Performance in Japan: Some Evidence since Fiscal 2002

Since the mid-1990s, major Japanese banks have sold off a significant portion of their holdings of corporate equity. Using information on the identity of Japanese firmsf top 10 shareholders, this paper explores the process of banksf equity disposal. There is some evidence that, after fiscal 2001, banksf sales of equity accelerated, even holdings in firms for which the bank served as the main bank. However, affiliation with a main bank-proxied by firm-bank loan and shareholding ties-continues to be negatively associated with firm performance through fiscal 2004. Regression estimates suggest that firms with strong bank ties are less profitable, face higher interest payments, and yet do not seem to enjoy lower stock price volatility than other firms. These effects are strongest for firms with a history of outside financing options, consistent with earlier arguments that the benefits of main bank relationships accrue to the banks themselves.Cross-shareholding; Main bank; Japanese banks; Firm performance

IndianaCTSI and INresearch

poster abstractThe Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) is a statewide collaboration of Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame, as well as public and private partnerships, which facilitates the translation of scientific discoveries in the lab into clinical trials and new patient treatments in Indiana and beyond

Unveiling Identities: A Cultural Study of the Portrayal of Leading Women in Zhang Yimou Films

It is imperative to recognize the ongoing collaborations of filmmakers from different countries. Film director Zhang Yimou, cited in this work, has reached out beyond his Chinese borders in recruiting both cast and crew on many of his latest features. But the field of film studies appears to have limited their investigations of such cross-cultural analyses, in particular the subjective analysis of the female lead character in film. Subjective and culturally wired as such, researchers bring forth conscious observations from their socialized unconscious minds. This textual analysis begins with a comparison of two Chinese films, particularly observing their similar female lead characters. This study illustrates how the ingrained cultural visions of film director Zhang Yimou are at his disposal to construct the appropriate cultural elements of the mise-en-scene in the making of the two films. The next chapter analyzes one film using a mode of gender representation known as “gazing” that strongly suggests a power dynamic in the female lead character’s non-verbal behavior. The last group of films crosses the cross-cultural line. By comparing a Western text to the “other” Eastern version of the same story, the task is to observe the changes involved in the unveiling and subsequent transparency of the female lead character. These observations look for the motives and emotions that define the female lead character, and contribute to the advancement to the plot. All of the films chosen for this study possess the characteristic style and form of the melodramatic

Medical Marijuana Education for Medical Students

As the nationwide discourse on medical marijuana evolves, with 28 out of 50 states approving its use, University of Massachusetts Medical School graduates will need to be prepared to discuss medical marijuana (MMJ) with their patients. There is currently no formal medical school education on MMJ. This project set out to understand the curriculum gap and provide a learning session to interested students. The presentation was created using research done by the author during the first three years of medical school, including visits to private MMJ clinics. Utilizing a pre/post-session online assessment of a group of twenty-six students, we found that student knowledge about Massachusetts’ MMJ law improved by 29%, following a ninety-minute session. In addition, self-assessed confidence in negotiating clinical scenarios involving marijuana improved by 34%. These improvements were statistically significant, with p-values of 0.0033 and 9.5x10-16 respectively. These findings support the formal addition of a sixty- to ninety-minute session focusing on MMJ to the UMMS curriculum.https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/capstones/1004/thumbnail.jp

Three Essays in Behavioral Economics

My dissertation consists of three essays examining economic decision making with experiments in a variety of competitive and cooperative settings. In the first essay, we examine potential explanations for the phenomenon of overbidding in rent seeking contests by eliciting the smallest share of the prize subjects will accept to avoid it. Our results show that the shares subjects demand are significantly larger than the expected monetary value of the contest, which suggests a stronger preference for costly competition than standard theory assumes. In the second essay, we examine the influence of competitive and earned entitlement on preferences for redistribution. Here we find that subjects are more likely to choose transfers that increase inequality for their reference group in competitive settings when doing so preserves their ordinal rank in the initial earnings distribution. The third essay considers the effect of endowment heterogeneity in a hold-up game conducted in the US and China. Our results show that subjects are more likely choose offers that reimburse their trading partners cost of investment when doing so results in equal payoffs for the pair. We also find significant differences in bargaining behavior with subjects that suggest stronger concerns for reciprocity among subjects in China relative to those in the US, though these differences do not result in greater efficiency