The Effects of Financing Status on Firm Behavior: The China Experience

In this thesis, we investigate the impact of firms’ financial conditions on three key corporate activities: fixed capital investment, cash holdings, and acquisition behavior. Our study provides an important extension to the related literature in the Chinese context by employing a 14-year panel of Chinese listed firms during the period 1998-2011. In chapter 2, we investigate the sensitivity of abnormal investment to free cash flow. First, we find that firms with free cash flow below (above) their optimal level tend to under- (over-) invest, which can be attributed to financial constraints (agency costs). We also find that significant heterogeneity in the sensitivities appear among firms with different financial conditions, ownership structure. Whether or not firms engage in exporting or Mergers & Acquisitions also affects the sensitivities. Additional analyses show that the 2005 exogenous split share reform reduced the agency problems faced by state controlled firms, particularly those controlled by local governments. In chapter 3, we focus the behavior of corporate cash holdings. We find evidence supportive of a cost-benefit trade-off model of cash holdings, suggesting that Chinese firms tend to actively manage their cash balances towards a target level. Reported evidence also shows that consistent with the presence of adjustment costs, there exists considerable heterogeneity in adjustment speeds of cash holdings across firms. Furthermore, we show that cash-rich, acquiring, and state-owned firms are characterized by a lower value of additional cash. At the same time, financially constrained firms have a higher marginal value of cash, suggesting that more difficulties in accessing capital markets encourages firms to make better use of additional cash. In chapter 4, we investigate the extent to which corporate liquidity affects Chinese listed firms’ acquisition decisions, method of payment choices, and consequent performance following mergers. In line with the free-cash-flow motive of acquisitions, we find that cash-rich firms are more likely to attempt acquisitions. Furthermore, the agency costs effect of acquisitions is greater for firms who are subject to tunneling. Finally, we provide empirical evidence to support the fact that financially constrained firms with higher growth prospects tend not to use cash payments in acquisitions. We attribute this finding to the higher opportunity cost of cash faced by firms who face more difficulties in accessing capital markets. This finding is consistent with the under-performance of cash acquisitions in both the short and long-term

Adjustment behavior of corporate cash holdings: the China experience

Using a panel of 1478 Chinese listed firms over the period 1998–2010, we examine the behavior of corporate cash holdings. Consistent with the trade-off theory, we document that Chinese firms tend to actively manage their cash balances toward a target level. We also observe a considerable heterogeneity in adjustment speeds of cash holdings across firms, due to the presence of different adjustment costs. Specifically, firms with a high level of excess cash, and firms that actively manage their cash balances through investment, dividend payments, and debt issuance, all display higher adjustment speeds. Finally, the institutional setting does not significantly affect adjustment speeds

Exploiting Contextual Information for Prosodic Event Detection Using Auto-Context

Prosody and prosodic boundaries carry significant information regarding linguistics and paralinguistics and are important aspects of speech. In the field of prosodic event detection, many local acoustic features have been investigated; however, contextual information has not yet been thoroughly exploited. The most difficult aspect of this lies in learning the long-distance contextual dependencies effectively and efficiently. To address this problem, we introduce the use of an algorithm called auto-context. In this algorithm, a classifier is first trained based on a set of local acoustic features, after which the generated probabilities are used along with the local features as contextual information to train new classifiers. By iteratively using updated probabilities as the contextual information, the algorithm can accurately model contextual dependencies and improve classification ability. The advantages of this method include its flexible structure and the ability of capturing contextual relationships. When using the auto-context algorithm based on support vector machine, we can improve the detection accuracy by about 3% and F-score by more than 7% on both two-way and four-way pitch accent detections in combination with the acoustic context. For boundary detection, the accuracy improvement is about 1% and the F-score improvement reaches 12%. The new algorithm outperforms conditional random fields, especially on boundary detection in terms of F-score. It also outperforms an n-gram language model on the task of pitch accent detection

Fabrication of Semiconductor with Modified Microstructure for Efficient Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Under Visible Light

Since sustainable energy and environment emerging as one of the top issues and challenges for humanity, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution under visible light has attracted increasing attention. Basically the separation and transmission of photogenerated charge carriers are the two main steps of a photocatalytic reaction. They should be key aspects in the design of efficient photocatalysts for solar energy conversion

Effects of Light and pH on Cell Density of Chlorella Vulgaris

AbstractImproving the cell density of microalgae cultivation is one of the keys to reduce the cost of microalgae biodiesel. Many studies showed that the adjustment of pH and light intensity could increase cell density. The effects of light intensities, pH and pH adjustments on the growth of Chlorella vulgaris were studied in light incubator. The light intensities were set at 3960, 7920 and 11920lux; values of pH were 7, 8, 9 and 10 respectively; and pH adjustment methods included without and with pH control. Results show that: (1) In terms of light intensity, without pH control, the cell density under 3960lux is highest. With pH control, the cell density under 7920lux is higher than other levels. (2) In terms of pH, under the same light intensity, the cell density with pH control at 10 is highest, which indicates the light intensity will not affect the optimal pH value. And the pH fluctuates between 10 and 10.5 with pH control at 10, which is the most suitable range of pH for Chlorella vulgaris cultivation. (3) For pH adjustment methods, under 7920lux, the cell density with pH control at 10.0 is 56.7% higher than that with initial pH at 10.0, while the cell density with initial pH at 7.0 is 34.7% than that with pH control at 7.0, which indicates the method with pH control at values of the optimum pH makes better growth of microalgae

Multimarket Competition and Profitability: Evidence from Ukrainian banking

This paper examines the impacts of non-price competition on bank performance in the Ukrainian banking industry from 2009 Q1 to 2015 Q4. The competition is proxied by three measures of multimarket contacts. Our data reveal that banks with higher level of multiple market contacts are more likely to be profitable. The findings support the mutual forbearance hypothesis. When banks compete with rivals that are similar in size in multiple markets, they have incentives to cooperate instead of competing aggressively. Moreover, the effect is stronger when multimarket competitors are highly similar in size and interact in more competitive markets. Furthermore, we develop an identification strategy in which military actions are treated as an exogenous shock to banks with branches in those regions. The results suggest that after the conflict, the less affected banks do not have incentives to mutual forbear with more affected banks that experienced a sharper decline in number of branches

Increased serum lysyl oxidase-like 2 levels correlate with the degree of left atrial fibrosis in patients with atrial fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) progression is generally accompanied by increased atrial fibrosis and atrial structural remodeling. Lysyl oxidase-like 2 (LOXL2) is known to play an important role in many fibrotic conditions, including cardiac fibrosis. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between serum LOXL2 levels and AF. Fifty-four AF patients and 32 control subjects were enrolled in the study. High-density three-dimensional electroanatomic mapping was performed, and mean bipolar voltage was assessed in AF patients. LOXL2 levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. All patients underwent echocardiography to assess left atrium size and left ventricle function. Serum LOXL2 levels were significantly elevated in AF patients compared with the control group (526.81 ± 316.82 vs 240.94 ± 92.51 pg/ml, P<0.01). In addition, serum LOXL2 level was significantly correlated with the size of the left atrium (LAD) (r2 = 0.38, P<0.01). Furthermore, the serum LOXL2 levels were significantly higher in AF patients with LAD ≥ 40 mm compared with those with LAD < 40 mm (664.34 ± 346.50 vs 354.90 ± 156.23 pg/ml, P<0.01). And the Spearman’s correlation analysis further revealed that the mean bipolar left atrial voltage was inversely correlated with the LOXL2 (r2 = −0.49, P<0.01) in AF patients. Multivariate regression analysis further demonstrated that serum LOXL2 [odds ratio (OR) 1.013, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.002–1.024, P<0.05] and LAD (OR 1.704, 95% CI 1.131–2.568, P<0.01) were independent predictors of AF. In conclusion, serum LOXL2 levels were significantly elevated and were correlated with the degree of left atrial fibrosis in AF patients

Multimarket Competition and Profitability: Evidence from Ukrainian banking

This paper examines the impacts of non-price competition on bank performance in the Ukrainian banking industry from 2009 Q1 to 2015 Q4. The competition is proxied by three measures of multimarket contacts. Our data reveal that banks with higher level of multiple market contacts are more likely to be profitable. The findings support the mutual forbearance hypothesis. When banks compete with rivals that are similar in size in multiple markets, they have incentives to cooperate instead of competing aggressively. Moreover, the effect is stronger when multimarket competitors are highly similar in size and interact in more competitive markets. Furthermore, we develop an identification strategy in which military actions are treated as an exogenous shock to banks with branches in those regions. The results suggest that after the conflict, the less affected banks do not have incentives to mutual forbear with more affected banks that experienced a sharper decline in number of branches

Multimarket Competition and Profitability: Evidence from Ukrainian banking

This paper examines the impacts of non-price competition on bank performance in the Ukrainian banking industry from 2009 Q1 to 2015 Q4. The competition is proxied by three measures of multimarket contacts. Our data reveal that banks with higher level of multiple market contacts are more likely to be profitable. The findings support the mutual forbearance hypothesis. When banks compete with rivals that are similar in size in multiple markets, they have incentives to cooperate instead of competing aggressively. Moreover, the effect is stronger when multimarket competitors are highly similar in size and interact in more competitive markets. Furthermore, we develop an identification strategy in which military actions are treated as an exogenous shock to banks with branches in those regions. The results suggest that after the conflict, the less affected banks do not have incentives to mutual forbear with more affected banks that experienced a sharper decline in number of branches

Multimarket competition and profitability: evidence from Ukrainian banks

This paper examines the impact of multimarket competition on bank performance. Exploiting a unique data set of Ukrainian banks’ branch locations, we construct three measures of multimarket contacts and find their positive effects on profitability. This finding supports the mutual forbearance hypothesis: the higher number of overlapped markets increases familiarity and similarity among multimarket rivals and makes them reluctant to compete aggressively. Further, we establish an identification strategy using the 2014 geopolitical conflict between Ukraine and Russia as an exogenous shock to banks’ branch networks. Our estimates show that the impact of the conflict on the mutual forbearance associated with banks’ multimarket contracts is more pronounced for shock-exposed banks compared to less exposed counterparts and thus the former experiences lower profitability after the conflict