The Choice of Debt Source by UK Firms

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Do banks really monitor? : Evidence from CEO succession decisions

The authors are grateful to Dick Davies, Paul Draper, Robert Faff, David Hillier, Ike Mathur (the editor), Katrin Migliorati, Krishna Paudyal, our anonymous reviewer, and to seminar participants at the 2nd International Conference of the Financial Engineering and Banking Society (London) and 2013 Midwest Finance Association Annual Meeting (Chicago) for helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. We also thank Martin Kemmitt for helpful research assistance on this project. All errors remain our own.Peer reviewedPostprin

A Strategic analysis of the Rocky Flats cleanup

The Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site is located in Golden, Colorado. It is situated on 384 acres in a 6,550-acre natural preserve. Rocky Flats ended its original mission in 1989, after raids on the site by both the FBI and the EPA for illegal dumping and other environmental violations. Since then the site has been scheduled for cleanup. This thesis will provide background information on the site and on the company hired to perform the cleanup. It also provides an evaluation of some key policies regarding the cleanup procedures. Since the end of the cold war, the production of nuclear weapons has ceased. The proposed cost of cleaning up such sites is dramatically higher than for similar sites not involved in the nuclear industry. This cost differential leads us to the inevitable conclusion that since such sites already exist, we must maintain efficient means of cleanup. Because a major factor in the cost is the speed or amount of time it takes to cleanup a site. So there is a need for streamlining the proposed cleanup of this site and others like it. To keep cost as low as possible

The relevance of the OECD BEPS action plan 2 recommnedations for selected aspects of cross border arbitrage through selected hybrid instruments and entity arrangements in South African Income Tax Law

Includes bibliographical referencesThe OECD made certain recommendations in its 2014 discussion draft, "Neutralising the Effects of Hybrid Mismatch Arrangements", comprising recommendations on domestic law and double tax convention measures. This dissertation assesses the potential implication of these recommendations for South Africa's tax laws and double tax conventions as these relate to cross border financing arrangements between two taxpayers using hybrid instruments or hybrid entities. These hybrid entities and mismatches and which give rise to mismatch outcomes either through a deduction arising in either jurisdictions or a deduction arising in one jurisdiction without an inclusion in income in the other jurisdiction. This assessment is made to understand how these recommendations could impact on South Africa's tax laws and double tax conventions. This impact is assessed by determining the publically expressed sentiment of the South African government towards the OECD's base erosion and profit shifting proposals and thereafter by assessing how the above noted recommendations may interact with the Income Tax Act and South Africa's double tax conventions to address mismatches within the scope of this dissertation. This interactions is assessed by: reviewing the treatment of cross border hybrid instrument and hybrid entity arrangements in the Income Tax Act, the withholding tax measures in the Income Tax Act, the treatment of these arrangements in double tax conventions concluded by South Africa, and the interaction of the recommendations in the above OECD report with the Income Tax Act and double tax conventions concluded by South Africa. Conclusions are then drawn from this analysis. The review of publically expressed sentiments of the South African government evidenced support for the OECD's base erosion and profit shifting proposals but also a sensitivity to South Africa's tax sovereignty. The review of the treatment in the Income Tax Act of the arrangements within the scope of this dissertation found that at times the Income Tax Act potentially did not resolve the mismatches of concern and that withholding tax may not have the potential to comprehensively preserve the tax base against these arrangements, particularly taking into account the influence of double tax conventions. The review of the recommendations in the above OECD report found that these recommendations could assist existing domestic tax law measures in addressing the mismatch outcomes of concern, albeit not necessarily comprehensively and potentially at the cost of added complexity. It was also found that the double tax convention recommendations appeared to have limited impact to clarifying and confirming the existing treatment of arrangements involving hybrid entities. These findings are significant as they indicate a support for the OECD's recommendations by the South African government and that the recommendations could assist in addressing the mismatch outcomes addressed in this dissertation

The Effect Of Internet Penetration On Market Structure In The Movie Industry

With the growing trend of internet penetration, researchers have conducted studies to determine its economic implications. Specifically, many studies have sought to determine what, if any, effect does internet penetration have on market competition. This study seeks to contribute to this body of work by examining the internet and competition in the movie industry. While previous studies have used variables such as product pricing as measures of competition, this study looks at indicators of market structure, such as the distribution of market shares and the Herfindahl Index. Ultimately, the results indicate that internet penetration may increase the market shares of smaller studios while decreasing the market shares of smaller and mid-sized ones. Moreover, the effect may be more pronounced when the internet is first introduced than when it grows thereafter. Finally, the study yields no conclusive results for whether internet penetration affects market concentration when measured by Herfindahl Index.Bachelor of Art

A Conceptual Assessment of the Uncertain Future of the Personal Computer

In this thesis, I investigate the chances that the personal computer (PC) becomes a thing of the past in the near future. PC sales have seen quite the downturn, while smartphones have thrived in the technology space. I also consider how affects not only firms in the technology sector, but in almost all fields. Since the world today revolves around technology, specifically computers, it goes without saying that a change in the way we depend on PCs would change how we do almost everything. After diligently analyzing various sources on the matter, as well as consulting my own experiences, I identified a plethora of arguments for and against the topic. Many view the personal computer as an artifact on its way out of relevancy, making way for new technologies that can easily replace a PC. On the other hand, PCs are still everywhere, and are necessary to fulfill many tasks that users depend on the machine for. I have discovered that one could analyze financial performance, trends in the tech industry and just about anything else without getting to the bottom of the issue. While it may be unreasonable to believe that in five years from now all desktops and laptops will be obsolete, we are no fortune tellers. The technology space is one of the most rapidly changing climates, but the personal computer paved the way for so many of the advances. When it’s all said and done, PCs will be around in one form or another

Individual and collective dynamics of chemotaxing cells

The study of the dynamics of interacting self-propelled entities is a growing area of physics research. This dissertation investigates individual and collective motion of the eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum, a system amenable to signal manipulation, mathematical modeling, and quantitative analysis. In the wild, Dictyostelium survive adverse conditions through collective behaviors caused by secreting and responding to chemical signals. We explore this collective behavior on size scales ranging from subcellular biochemistry up to dynamics of thousands of communicating cells. To study how individual cells respond to multiple signals, we perform stability analysis on a previously-developed computational model of signal sensing. Polarized cells are linearly stable to perturbations, with a least stable region at about 60 degrees off the polarization axis. This finding is confirmed through simulations of the model response to additional chemical signals. The off-axis sensitivity suggests a mechanism for previously observed zig-zag motion of real cells randomly migrating or chemotaxing in a linear gradient. Moving up in scale, we experimentally investigate the rules of cell motion and interaction in the context of thousands of cells. Migrating Dictyostelium discoideum cells communicate by sensing and secreting directional signals, and we find that this process leads to an initial signal having an increased spatial range of an order of magnitude. While this process steers cells, measurements indicate that intrinsic cell motility remains unaffected. Additionally, migration of individual cells is unaffected by changing cell-surface adhesion energy by nine orders of magnitude, showing that individual motility is a robust process. In contrast, we find that collective dynamics depend on cell-surface adhesion, with greater adhesion causing cells to form smaller collective structures. Overall, this work suggests that the underlying migration ability of individual Dictyostelium cells operates largely independent of environmental conditions. Our gradient-sensing model shows that polarized cells are stable to small perturbations, and our experiments demonstrate that the motility apparatus is robust to considerable changes in cell-surface adhesion or complex signaling fields. However, we find that environmental factors can dramatically affect the collective behavior of cells, emphasizing that the laws governing cell-cell interaction can change migration patterns without altering intrinsic cell motility

Show me the data: the pilot UK Research Data Registry

The UK Research Data (Metadata) Registry pilot project is implementing a prototype registry for the UK's research data assets, enabling the holdings of subject-based data centres and institutional data repositories alike to be searched from a single location. The purpose of the prototype is to prove the concept of the registry and uncover challenges that will need to be addressed if and when the registry is developed into a sustainable service. The prototype is being tested using metadata records harvested from nine UK data centres and the data repositories of nine UK universities

The market reaction to debt announcements : UK evidence surrounding the global financial crisis

We are grateful to Douglas Cumming, Dick Davies, Paul Draper, and seminar participants at the 2015 BAFA Annual Conference (Manchester), 2015 EAA Annual Congress (Glasgow), 2016 INFINITI Conference on International Finance (Dublin), 2016 Young Finance Scholars Conference (Sussex), and the 2016 BAFA Scottish Area Group (Glasgow) conference for comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this work. We also thank Martin Kemmitt for helpful research assistance on this project. All errors remain our own.Peer reviewedPostprin