CEO inside debt and risk-taking in US banks: evidence from three bank policies

Widespread losses during the recent financial crisis have raised concerns that equitybased CEO compensation (stocks and stock options) causes risky bank policies. This has led to the need to understand whether CEO pay can be re-structured such that it dampens risk-taking incentives. Against this background, this thesis analyses if debtbased compensation (also known as inside debt and consisting of pension benefits and deferred compensation) motivates CEOs to pursue risk-reducing bank policies. Over three decades of research into executive compensation has not explored the impact of inside debt, primarily due to lack of detailed data on inside debt which only became available after 2006 in the United States (US). The paucity of empirical work on inside debt is particularly unfortunate, given that the value of inside debt is often substantial. This dissertation provides one of the first empirical investigations into the impact of inside debt on bank risk-taking by determining whether CEO inside debt leads to less risky behaviour, through three policy decisions that are capable of increasing the overall risk of the bank. First, this thesis focuses on the payout policies of banks. Bank payouts divert cash to shareholders, while leaving behind riskier and less liquid assets to repay creditors in the future. Payouts, thus, constitute a type of risk-taking that benefits shareholders at the expense of creditors. The results presented in this thesis indicate that higher inside debt results in more conservative bank payout policies. Specifically, CEOs paid with more inside debt are more likely to cut payouts and to cut payouts by a larger amount. Reductions in payouts occur through a decrease in both dividends and repurchases. The results also hold over a sub-sample of banks which received government support in the form of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) where the link between risk-taking and payouts is of particular relevance because it involves wealth transfers from the taxpayer to shareholders. Second, this thesis tests the impact of inside debt on the risk implications of bank acquisitions. Bank acquisitions are large scale investment decisions that can affect bank risk. To this end, this thesis shows that higher inside debt holdings motivate CEOs to pursue acquisitions that result in lower bank default risk. It also prevents CEOs from using acquisitions to shift risk to the financial safety-net. Since the safety net is underwritten by the taxpayer, the results show that CEO inside debt has a measurable impact on the subsidy which bank shareholders obtain from taxpayers. Third, the thesis shows that inside debt plays a critical role in influencing bank capital holdings. Higher equity capital provides creditors with a larger loss-absorbing equity buffer to protect the value of their claims on bank cash flows. Ceteris paribus, higher equity protects creditors from losses. To this end, this thesis shows that higher inside debt results in motivating banks to hold higher capital, whether defined using regulatory or economic terms. Higher inside debt also results in reducing the estimated value of the taxpayer losses. Furthermore, banks with higher inside debt are at a lower risk of facing capital shortfalls. Taken together, the study provides insights on how incentives stemming from inside debt impact bank policies in a manner that protects creditor interests. Inside debt can help in addressing excessive risk-taking concerns by aligning the interests of CEOs with those of creditors, regulators, and the taxpayer. This thesis makes a novel contribution to the banking literature by providing evidence on the implications of inside debt in the US banking industry. This work should be interpreted as part of a wider body of research which demonstrates that inside debt matters for bank risk-taking and that this role of inside debt should be recognized more widely in ongoing discussions on compensation incentives in banking

Effects of chlorpyrifos on ultimobranchial and parathyroid glands of Indian skipper frog, Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis

This study investigated effects of chlorpyrifos on ultimobranchial (UBG) and parathyroid glands (PTG) of frog, Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis. Frogs were treated with chlorpyrifos for short and long term and sacrificed after 24, 48, 72 or 96 h in short term and after 5.10, 15 and 30 days in long term. Chlorpyrifos exposure provokes   decrease  in    serum  calcium  levels  after  48 h which persists till 96 h. There is slight decrease in the nuclear volume of UBG cells and  cytoplasm depict weak staining response after 72 h. After 96 h these changes are more pronounced. PTG of Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis exposed to chlorpyrifos exhibit no change till 96 h. Serum calcium decreases on day 10 after chlorpyrifos exposure which continue to fall progressively till 30 days. After 15 days chloryrifos exposure, nuclear volume of UBG exhibit decrease and follicular epithelium displays decrease in height. Follicular epithelium after 30 days chlorpyrifos exposure reduces to the extent that it becomes single layered. Few degenerating cells have been discerned. At this interval nuclear volume of ultimobranchial cells exhibits a further decrease. PTG of chlorpyrifos treated frog depicts increased nuclear volume of PTG at 10 and 15 days. The nuclei of PTG are hyperchromatic and the gland becomes compact at 15 days. After 30 days following chlorpyrifos treatment nuclear volume exhibits further increase. Also degenerating cells make their appearance. Calcium regulating glands UBG and PTG of frogs were adversely affected by exposure to chlorpyrifos which may disturb the physiological functions of the organism. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.400415

Microstructure evolution and densification during spark plasma sintering of nanocrystalline W-5wt.%Ta alloy

The present work reports the effect of Ta on densification and microstructure evolution during non-isothermal and spark plasma sintering of nanocrystalline W. Nanocrystalline W-5wt.%Ta alloy powder was synthesized using mechanical alloying. The nanocrystalline powder was characterized thoroughly using X-ray diffraction line profile analysis. Furthermore, the shrinkage behavior of nanocrystalline powder was investigated during non-isothermal sintering using dilatometry. Subsequently, the alloy powder was consolidated using spark plasma sintering up to 1600 {\deg}C. The role of Ta on stabilizing the microstructure during spark plasma sintering of nanocrystalline W was investigated in detail using electron backscatter diffraction. The average grain size of spark plasma sintered W-5wt.%Ta alloy was observed as 1.73 micron.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Essential criteria for quality OPD services as perceived by patients in a tertiary care hospital in Faridabad City

Background: In a health care system, patient’s perception about quality is of utmost importance to understand the relationship between quality of care and utilization of health services. It is also treated as an outcome of health care delivery. The current study was planned to improve the quality of services rendered at tertiary care facilities by utilizing the clients’ perception regarding the services.Methods: The present study was a hospital based, cross sectional type of descriptive study. Data collection was done through exit interviews among randomly selected new OPD attendees in a tertiary care hospital using a pre- structured, pretested Performa as the study tool. Likert’s scale was used for assessment of client perception on quality of health services and overall satisfaction. Data was analyzed using SPSS 17.0.Results: Present study was comprised of 402 subjects including 216 males and 184 females. It was observed that 93.9% subjects perceive quality of services as good and 87.8% clients were satisfied with the services rendered at the hospital. Good doctor behavior (51.7%), medicine availability (38.6%) and cleanliness (35.4%) in the hospital were found to be most important reasons behind the satisfaction of the clients as verbally expressed by them. Among dissatisfied (12.2%) study subjects, poor medicine availability (57.1%) and poor investigation facilities were considered (48.9%) as major reasons behind their dissatisfaction.Conclusions: Majority of our patients were satisfied after availing health services at our hospital. We have identified a few deficient areas in terms of service delivery and the same will be bridged as early as possible in order to achieve universal patient satisfaction

Temporal Learning in Video Data Using Deep Learning and Gaussian Processes

This paper presents an approach for data-driven modeling of hidden, stationary temporal dynamics in sequential images or videos using deep learning and Bayesian non-parametric techniques. In particular, a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is used to extract spatial features in an unsupervised fashion from individual images and then, a Gaussian process is used to model the temporal dynamics of the spatial features extracted by the deep CNN. By decomposing the spatial and temporal components and utilizing the strengths of deep learning and Gaussian processes for the respective sub-problems, we are able to construct a model that is able to capture complex spatio-temporal phenomena while using relatively small number of free parameters. The proposed approach is tested on high-speed grey-scale video data obtained of combustion flames in a swirl-stabilized combustor, where certain protocols are used to induce instability in combustion process. The proposed approach is then used to detect and predict the transition of the combustion process from stable to unstable regime. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach is able to detect unstable flame conditions using very few frames from high-speed video. This is useful as early detection of unstable combustion can lead to better control strategies to mitigate instability. Results from the proposed approach are compared and contrasted with several baselines and recent work in this area. The performance of the proposed approach is found to be significantly better in terms of detection accuracy, model complexity and lead-time to detection

Generation, annotation, and analysis of ESTs from midgut tissue of adult female Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malaria is a tropical disease caused by protozoan parasite, <it>Plasmodium</it>, which is transmitted to humans by various species of female anopheline mosquitoes. <it>Anopheles stephensi </it>is one such major malaria vector in urban parts of the Indian subcontinent. Unlike <it>Anopheles gambiae</it>, an African malaria vector, transcriptome of <it>A. stephensi </it>midgut tissue is less explored. We have therefore carried out generation, annotation, and analysis of expressed sequence tags from sugar-fed and <it>Plasmodium yoelii </it>infected blood-fed (post 24 h) adult female <it>A. stephensi </it>midgut tissue.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We obtained 7061 and 8306 ESTs from the sugar-fed and <it>P. yoelii </it>infected mosquito midgut tissue libraries, respectively. ESTs from the combined dataset formed 1319 contigs and 2627 singlets, totaling to 3946 unique transcripts. Putative functions were assigned to 1615 (40.9%) transcripts using BLASTX against UniProtKB database. Amongst unannotated transcripts, we identified 1513 putative novel transcripts and 818 potential untranslated regions (UTRs). Statistical comparison of annotated and unannotated ESTs from the two libraries identified 119 differentially regulated genes. Out of 3946 unique transcripts, only 1387 transcripts were mapped on the <it>A. gambiae </it>genome. These also included 189 novel transcripts, which were mapped to the unannotated regions of the genome. The EST data is available as ESTDB at <url>http://mycompdb.bioinfo-portal.cdac.in/cgi-bin/est/index.cgi</url>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>3946 unique transcripts were successfully identified from the adult female <it>A. stephensi </it>midgut tissue. These data can be used for microarray development for better understanding of vector-parasite relationship and to study differences or similarities with other malaria vectors. Mapping of putative novel transcripts from <it>A. stephensi </it>on the <it>A. gambiae </it>genome proved fruitful in identification and annotation of several genes. Failure of some novel transcripts to map on the <it>A. gambiae </it>genome indicates existence of substantial genomic dissimilarities between these two potent malaria vectors.</p

What's in an education? Implications of CEO education for bank performance

Exploiting a unique hand-built dataset, this paper finds that CEO educational attainment, both level and quality, matters for bank performance. We offer robust evidence that banks led by CEOs with MBAs outperform their peers. Such CEOs improve performance when compensation structures are geared towards greater risk-taking incentives, and when banks follow riskier or more innovative business models. Our findings suggest that management education delivers skills enabling CEOs to manage increasingly larger and complex banking firms and achieve successful performance outcomes

Miljöbedömning av Kajak med hjälp av MFA &amp; LCA : En fallstudie genomförd i samarbete med Melker of Sweden

Kayaking is a watersport activity that involves paddling performed within leisure purposes. Although kayaking provides pleasure to the practitioners, there are some adverse environmental issues concerning the site used to perform kayaking due to the equipment. This paper identifies and analyzes the lifecycle stages in which negative environmental impacts are generated. Melker of Sweden is an outdoor company specialized in delivering high-quality kayaks. This study aims to present an overview of the current environmental performance of Melker of Sweden’s kayaks. For this purpose, two environmental assessment tools are applied: material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. The Material Flow Analysis (MFA) results show that the transport of material to the manufacturing unit generates a considerable amount of emissions. Additionally, hull manufacturing and assembling accessories were found to be the least resource-efficient operation among all. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results identify the transport of material and the manufacturing phase as the primary sources responsible for environmental impacts. On the one hand, the use of epoxy resin and gel coat is the root cause of high contribution of the manufacturing phase. On the other hand, the use of flax fiber found to be the least contributing material to adverse environmental impacts. This report also presents a list of recommendations regarding the import of material, the efficacy of the manufacturing operations, the type of raw material, and waste treatment alternatives.Fysisk aktivitet kan innefatta olika fritidsaktiviteter, däribland friluftsliv. Kajakpaddling är en sådan friluftslivaktivitet, alltefter utövares syfte. I denna rapport är kajakpaddling en fritidsaktivitet där där utövarens naturupplevelse främjas. Oaktat fördelarna vid utövandet av denna aktivitet kan ej förbises faktum att det också kan medföras vissa negativa konsekvenser. Denna masteruppsats har som mål att identifiera och analysera den miljöpåverkan och dennes efterspel som orsakats av en kajaks tillverkning. Melker of Sweden är ett utomhusföretag specialiserat på att leverera kajaker av hög kvalitet. I linje med företagets vision syftar denna studie till att undersöka den nuvarande miljöprestandan samt kvantifiera den potentiella miljöpåverkan från en kajaks livscykel. För detta ändamål tillämpas det två miljöbedömningsverktyg, nämligen en materialflödesanalys och livscykelanalys. Materialflödesanalysen visar att mängden av utsläpp som genereras från transporten av material till tillverkningsenheten är enorm. Utöver detta var den hulltillverkning samt den montering av tillbehörsverksamheter bland de minst resurseffektiva tillverkningssteg. Livscykelanalysen identifierar import av material och tillverkningsfas som de viktigaste källorna till miljöpåverkan. Å ena sidan är användningen av epoxiharts och gelbeläggning i tillverkningen grundorsaken till huvudbidraget. Å andra sidan är användningen av linfiber det minst bidragande material då det gäller negativa miljöeffekter. I denna studie ges rekommendationer rörande import av vissa material och materialval, sätt att öka tillverkningseffektiviteten, typ av råmaterial samt avfallsbehandlingsalternativ