The valuation effect and determinants of corporate contracting : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Business Studies at Massey University, December 2002

This study examined abnormal stock market returns to equity holders around corporate contract announcement that were obtained from Dow Jones & Company, Inc. between January 1, 1990 and December 31, 2000. Of the 7137 contract announcement found, 984 contract winning companies (contractee) and 575 contract giving companies (contractor) were not contaminated by other announcements and have sufficient CRSP data to enter the final sample that was analyzed for excess returns to the contractees. Excess returns were also analyzed for the contractors. The Asymmettic Information Hypothesis and Information Content Hypothesis were used to develop hypotheses that predict contract announcement abnormal returns. The Market Model was used to analyze abnormal returns for both the contractees and contractors. As expected, statistically significant cumulative average excess returns were found for contractee companies, but not for contractor companies. Contractee excess returns were also examined for different industry groups. Also, the international or domestic nature of the contractor is analyzed for differences in abnormal returns. Contrary to expectations, the market reacted with more significant abnormal return for domestic contracting than the international contracting. Finally, cross-sectional regression models are developed to test the statistical significance of variables relative to sample characteristic, firm size, profitability, and information asymmetries of firm. Contractee relative contract size was found to have significant impact on cumulative average abnormal returns. Dummy variables were included in the cross-section model to account for the sequence of the contract and nationality of the contractee and contractor, but they were statistically insignificant to the model. The variables for contractor's firm were also statistically insignificant in effecting abnormal returns for their equity

Dynamical fluctuations in critical regime and across the 1st order phase transition

In this proceeding, we study the dynamical evolution of the sigma field within the framework of Langevin dynamics. We find that, as the system evolves in the critical regime, the magnitudes and signs of the cumulants of sigma field, $C_{3}$ and $C_{4}$, can be dramatically different from the equilibrated ones due to the memory effects near $T_c$. For the dynamical evolution across the 1st order phase transition boundary, the supercooling effect leads the sigma field to be widely distributed in the thermodynamical potential, which largely enhances the cumulants $C_3, \ C_4$, correspondingly.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, proceedings for Quark Matter 201

Enhancements of high order cumulants across the 1st order phase transition boundary

In this proceeding, we investigate the dynamical evolution of the $\sigma$ field with a trajectory across the 1st order phase transition boundary, using Langevin dynamics from the linear sigma model. We find the high order cumulants of the $\sigma$ field are largely enhanced during the dynamical evolution, compared with the equilibrium values, due to the supercooling effect of the first order phase transition.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, SQM proceeding, with minor change

A Comparative Efficiency Analysis of Wheat Farms using Parametric and Nonparametric Methods

Efficiency Analysis, Deterministic Nonparametric Method, Parametric, Stochastic Frontier., Production Economics, Q12,

Ising parameterization of QCD Landau free energy and its dynamics

We present a general linear parameterization scheme for the QCD Landau free energy in the vicinity of the critical point of chiral phase transition in the $\mu$-$T$ plane. Based on the parametric free energy, we show that, due to the finite size effects, the regions of fluctuations of the order parameter (i.e. the $\sigma$ field) are broadened, and the discontinuities of the first order phase transition are smoothed. Meanwhile, the kurtosis of the $\sigma$ field is universally negative around the critical point. Using the Fokker-Plank equation, we derive the dynamical corrections to the free energy. The dynamical cumulants of the $\sigma$ field on the freeze-out line, record earlier information in the first order phase transition region as compared to the crossover region. The typical behavior of dynamical cumulants can be understood from the equilibrium cumulants by considering the memory effects.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. Fig.1 is replaced. More discussions are adde