On the Objective of Corporate Boards: Theory and Evidence

Abstract: There are two views on board objectives: (i) boards act as monitors with the objective to maximize firms' long-term fundamental values; and (ii) boards act myopically with a focus on firms' short-term market values. We propose a principal-agent model linking CEO incentive pay to earnings overstatement that allows us to differentiate between these objectives empirically. In response to an increase in the cost of overstating earnings, the model predicts an increase in CEO incentives if boards act as monitors, but a decrease in CEO incentives if boards are myopic. We find strong evidence of a decrease in CEO incentives around the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Moreover, the model predicts that capital market pressure makes boards more myopic. We document a positive relationship between capital market pressure and CEO incentives. Around SOX, CEO incentives also fall by more in firms with high capital market pressure, as predicted by the model. Our results strongly support the myopic board view.

Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Influencing Students’ Academic Performance in Online Courses: A Case Study

The problem at the center of this study was the fact that full-time virtual students often showed less learning gains than their traditional counterparts. The purpose of the study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of internal and external factors influencing students’ academic achievement in online courses. The central research question was: what factors do teachers perceive as a significant impact on online students’ success? A qualitative method with a case study design was adopted. Data were collected through individual teacher interviews and a focus group discussion in southeastern region of the United States. The results showed five significant themes: student motivation/drive in academics, teacher support for online students, communication between stakeholders for student success, parent support of the student, and home life of the student. The implication of this study highlights the need for all stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual coursework and redesign course framework to meet the needs of students. The recommendation for further research includes expanding the scope of the study to understand online learning’s impact on other student populations, including student populations across the United States, along with countries around the world

Morphology, lifecycles, and environmental sensitivities of tropical trimodal convection

Includes bibliographical references.2022 Fall.Convective clouds are ubiquitous in the tropics and typically follow a trimodal distribution of cumulus, congestus, and cumulonimbus clouds. Due to the crucial role each convective mode plays in tropical and global transport of heat and moisture, there has been both historical and recent interest in the characteristics, sensitivities, and lifecycles of these clouds. However, designing novel studies to further our knowledge has been challenging due to several limitations: the extensive computing resources needed to conduct modeling studies at sufficient resolution and scale to capture the trimodal distribution in detail; the lack of analysis tools which can objectively detect and track these clouds throughout their lifetime; and a need for more observational and modeling data of the tropical convective environments that produce these clouds. In this dissertation, three distinct but related studies that address these problems to advance the knowledge of our field on the morphology, lifecycles, and environmental sensitivities of tropical trimodal convection are presented. The first study examines the sensitivities of the tropical trimodal distribution and the convective environment to initial aerosol loading and low-level static stability. The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) configured as a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is utilized to resolve all three modes in detail through two full diurnal cycles. Three initial static stabilities and three aerosol profiles are independently and simultaneously varied for a suite of nine simulations. This research found that (1) large aerosol loading and strong low-level static stability suppress the bulk environment and the intensity and coverage of convective clouds; (2) cloud and environmental responses to aerosol loading tend to be stronger than those from static stability; (3) the effects of aerosol and stability perturbations modulate each other substantially; (4) the deepest convection and highest dynamical intensity occur at moderate aerosol loading, rather than at low or high loading; and (5) most of the strongest feedbacks due to aerosol and stability perturbations are seen in the boundary layer (the latter being applied within the boundary layer themselves), though some are stronger above the freezing level. The second study presented seeks to further enhance an artificial intelligence analysis tool, the Tracking and Object-Based Analysis of Clouds (tobac) Python package, from both a scientific and procedural standpoint to enable a wider variety of research uses, including process-level studies of tropical trimodal convection. Scientific improvements to tobac v1.5 include an expansion of the tool from 2D to 3D analyses and the addition of a new spectral filtering tool. Procedural enhancements added include greater computational efficiency, data regridding capabilities, and treatments for processing data with singly or doubly periodic boundary conditions (PBCs). My distinct contributions to this work focused on the 2D to 3D expansion and the PBC treatment. These new capabilities are presented through figures, schematics, and discussion of the new science that tobac v1.5 facilitates, such as the analysis of large basin-scale datasets and detailed simulations of layered clouds, that would have been impossible before. Finally, the last study in this dissertation is a process-focused modeling study on the sensitivities of upscale growth of tropical trimodal convection to environmental aerosol loading. This project was enabled by the scientific and procedural improvements to tobac discussed in the second study, in particular the new abilities of tobac to detect and track objects in 3D and with model PBCs. Here, we used a subset of RAMS simulations from the first study, where only aerosol loading was changed and the upscale growth from shallow cumulus through congestus and cumulonimbus during the nighttime hours was investigated. This study revealed that moderately increasing aerosol loading enhances collision-coalescence processes in the middle of the cloud, which delays initial glaciation but promotes it later in the growth period. Greatly increasing aerosol, however, produces a cloud structure with a more extreme aspect ratio and greater entrainment aloft that rapidly loses buoyancy and vertical velocity with height, as well as exhibiting a greater amount of condensate loading towards the top of the cloud. We also found the relative timing of these processes to be especially important, with more rapid initial growth and lofting of condensate often inhibiting deeper convective growth

Ueber die Luetische Phthise

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Health Hazards in Rental Housing: An Overview of Clark County, Nevada

A wide range of health conditions are associated with housing conditions, including asthma, respiratory infections, injuries, mental health issues, and lead poisoning. People in modern societies spend more than 90% of their time indoors, the vast majority of which is spent at home. Therefore, any new information on housing related health hazards in a population provides an opportunity for a new prevention program. Reports have shown that rental properties have more health related hazards than owner occupied housing, and rental properties are frequently occupied by low-income and minority individuals. This descriptive study intended to provide an overview of housing related health hazards in Clark County, NV rental housing, as no published data exists regarding conditions in that subset of housing. Information gathered as part of the operation of a landlord/tenant hotline, managed by the Southern Nevada Health District, was analyzed to determine: 1) the geographical distribution of reported housing related health hazards in rental properties, 2) if an association exists between either income or type of housing and the frequency of reported housing related health hazards in rental properties, and 3) the prevalence of specific categories of hazards in rental housing. Frequency distributions showed that reports of housing related health hazards in rental properties (N=3,523) are not equally distributed throughout the county even after adjusting for differences in the number of occupied housing units in an area. A Spearman\u27s Rank Order correlation revealed a statistically significant inverse relationship (n = 21, r = -.877, p \u3c .01) between median income of a zip code and reported housing related health hazards in that zip code. A Mann-Whitney U test indicated that the distribution of complaints is the same (n = 21, p \u3e .05) across zip codes regardless of the predominant type of housing in that zip code. Frequency distributions of hazard category showed that mold, bed bugs, general maintenance, and cockroaches are the most frequently reported health hazards in Clark County rental housing. Reports of health hazards that are known asthma triggers made up 36.7% of the total reported health hazards in renter occupied housing, although this is thought to be a gross underestimate of the true prevalence due to reporting limitations. The results of this study contributed to narrowing the knowledge gap regarding housing conditions in renter occupied units in Clark County, NV and to the possibility of further analyses of the SNHD landlord/tenant hotline

Three Essays in Financial Economics.

Chapter 1 is a critique of a highly influential paper in corporate governance. Chhaochharia and Grinstein (2009) estimate that CEO pay decreases 17% more in firms that were not compliant with the recent NYSE/Nasdaq board independence requirement than in firms that were compliant. We document that 74% of this magnitude is attributable to two outliers out of 865 sample firms. In addition, we find that the compensation committee independence requirement increases CEO total pay, particularly in the presence of effective shareholder monitoring. Our evidence casts doubt on the effectiveness of independent directors in constraining CEO pay as suggested by the managerial power hypothesis. In chapter 2, we investigate whether the earnings overstatements that led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) may have been an intended consequence of pay-for-performance. We find that incentives were higher when current shareholders stood to benefit from overstatements by selling their shares at inflated prices. Incentives also fell in response to the additional costs imposed by SOX, and the decrease is concentrated in firms whose shareholders benefit from overstatements. If overstatements were a symptom of the agency conflict, incentives should have increased around SOX to induce more productive effort as managers voluntarily cut back on overstatements. The empirical evidence thus rejects the view that earnings overstatements prior to 2002 were an unintended consequence of pay-for-performance. In chapter 3, we explore the relationship between obesity and household credit risk. Obesity is a known health risk factor and carries a social stigma. Its presence provides a potentially informative signal about individuals' choices and preferences. Using NLSY survey data, we estimate that the loan delinquency rate among the obese is 20% higher than among the non-obese after controlling for numerous observable, prohibited, and - to lenders - unobservable credit risk factors. The economic significance of obesity for delinquencies is comparable to that of job displacements. Obesity is particularly informative about future delinquencies among those with low credit risk. In terms of channels, we find that the obesity effect is at least partially mediated through poor health, but is not attributable to individuals' time preferences.Ph.D.EconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89698/1/jansoko_1.pd