An investigation of cash holdings debt maturity and corporate performance considering managerial overconfidence evidence from listed Vietnamese firms

One of the most important objectives of any firm is maximizing firm value. In order to achieve that goal, many different aspects come into play. One of those aspects is financial decisions. Financial decisions are mostly determined by managers, therefore, it can be stated that managers are people who play the main role in determining the success of firms. Stemming from this statement, this study attempts to investigate the impact of managerial overconfidence on some financial management aspects, including cash holdings, debt maturity and firm performance. Furthermore, the thesis also expands the research to examine the impact of managerial overconfidence on the deviation between the actual level of cash holdings and the optimal level of cash holdings, and the deviation between the actual level of debt maturity and the optimal level of debt maturity. By mainly focusing on data from 123 face-to-face interviews with top-line managers of Vietnamese non-financial listed firms, the thesis uses data on voice pitch to measure managerial overconfidence and test the effect of managerial overconfidence on the research topics. Besides using voice pitch, to strengthen the empirical results, the study also uses some other measurements of managerial overconfidence, including psychometric testing, bias in earnings forecast, manager’s gender, the visibility of CEOs’ photographs in firms’ annual reports and, a comprehensive index from multiple measurements of the research. The findings indicate that, firstly, firms with overconfident managers tend to hold less cash but the actual level of cash holdings is not far from the optimal level of cash holdings. Secondly, overconfident managers prefer using long-term debt over short-term debt, and they tend to make a higher deviation between the actual level of debt maturity and the target level of debt maturity. Finally, managerial overconfidence is found to be associated with a better result of firm performance

Revisiting the EKC hypothesis in South Asia: The role of Export Quality Improvement

Global climate change adversities have particularly sparked the urgency in mitigating carbon dioxide emissions across the world. Against this backdrop, the paper attempts to investigate the validity of the carbon dioxide emission-induced Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis controlling for the impacts of export quality on the economic growth-carbon dioxide emission nexus in the context of selected South Asian economies: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Using annual data from 1972 to 2014, the results from the panel data econometric analyses provide statistical validity to the EKC hypothesis while the country-specific results depict heterogeneity of the findings in this regard. The EKC hypothesis is validated only for Bangladesh and India while in the context of Pakistan the economic growth-carbon dioxide emission nexus portrays a U-shaped association. In contrast, economic growth is found to monotonically decrease carbon dioxide emissions in Sri Lanka and Nepal. Besides, the results from both the panel and time-series analyses suggest that improvement in export quality lead to lower levels of carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, the statistical significance of the interaction term between economic growth and export quality implies that the overall impacts of economic growth on carbon dioxide emissions are conditional on the quality of the exports. Thus, enhancing the quality of the export products is pertinent with respect to ensuring environmental sustainability across South Asia

Managerial Overconfidence and Corporate Cash Holdings: Evidence from Primary and Secondary Data

The corporate finance literature argues that overconfident managers tend to hold less cash, and this leads to a significant deviation from optimal cash levels. We analyse the impact of executive overconfidence on the corporate cash holdings of listed Vietnamese firms. To quantify managerial overconfidence, a novel core measure used in our analyses is voice pitch, which is obtained from interviews with top-line managers. Other measures of managerial overconfidence are also used to support the results and confirm the validity of the voice pitch measure. Our empirical evidence, with economically significant results, reveals that higher levels of overconfidence amongst managers are associated with lower cash holdings. Surprisingly, the findings show that overconfident managers tend to be associated with a low level of deviation from optimal cash holding levels. In addition, our findings also provide evidence that managerial overconfidence can increase cash levels and deviations from target cash holdings for overinvesting firms

Nanosilica synthesis and application for lead treatment in water

Lead is a naturally occurring element that has high atomic weight (207u) and density (11.3 g/cm3). Their multiple industrial, domestic, agricultural, medical and technological applications have led to their wide distribution in the environment, raising concerns over their potential effects on human health and the environment. At present, extensive application of nanosilica in environmental pollution treatment has led to the development of silica extraction methodologies out of various chemical and waste products. In this study, nanosilica is synthesized by sol-gel method from tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) with base catalysts and volumetric ratio TEOS/C2H5OH/H2O/NH4OH: 5/30/1/1 and identified characteristics by some modern techniques such as Energy-dispersive Xray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourrier Transformation Infrared (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron micrograph (SEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The results showed that the prepared SiO2 nanoparticles were amorphous phase with the average size about 60-100 nm and can be used as an immediately utilization for lead treatment. At the pH of 5, shaking within 1 hours with speed 150rpm/min, lead treatment efficiency is 96.17% for initial Pb2+ concentration 10 mgPb2+/L. Maximum adsorption concentration Qmax = 30.3mg/g, and adsorbent and adsorbate constant b = 0.868 L/g. Therefore, extracted nanosilica from TEOS has high lead treatment efficiency. In addition, synthesis nanosilica from rice husk with similar characteristics is a new research approach to improve application and economic value of the material.Chì là nguyên tố tự nhiên có khối lượng nguyên tử cao(207 đvC), tỉ trọng lớn (11,3 g/cm3) và được ứng dụng phổ biến trong công nghiệp, nông nghiệp, sinh hoạt, y tế và công nghệ. Việc sử dụng rộng rãi chì trong nhiều lĩnh vực làm tăng mối quan ngại về tác động tiềm tàng của chúng đối tới sức khỏe con người và môi trường. Hiện nay việc áp dụng rộng rãi nanosilica vào xử lí ô nhiễm môi trường đã và đang dẫn đến sự phát triển của các phương pháp tách chiết silica từ hóa chất và các phế phụ phẩm. Trong nghiên cứu này, nanosilica được tổng hợp bằng phương pháp sol-gel từ tetraetoxysilan (TEOS) với xúc tác bazo theo tỷ lệ thể tích TEOS/C2H5OH/H2O/NH4OH là 5/30/1/1 và xác định các đặc tính bằng một số kỹ thuật hiện đại như phổ tán sắc năng lượng tia X (EDX), quang phổ hồng ngoại (FTIR) và nhiễu xạ tia X (XRD), kính hiển vi điện tử quét (SEM), kính hiển vi điện tử quét phát xạ trường (FESEM). Kết quả cho thấy các hạt nano SiO2 tách chiết được có pha vô định hình với kích thước trung bình khoảng 60-100 nm và được sử dụng trực tiếp cho xử lí chì. Tại điều kiện pH=5, lắc trong 1 giờ với tốc độ 150 vòng/phút, hiệu quả xử lý chì đạt 96,17% đối với nước nhiễm kim loại chì có nồng độ ban đầu là 10mgPb2+/L. Lượng hấp phụ cực đại Qmax = 30,3mg/g; hằng số đặc trưng của chất hấp phụ và chất bị hấp phụ b = 0,868L/g. Như vậy, hiệu quả xử lý kim loại chì của vật liệu nano silica được tổng hợp từ TEOS là rất cao. Bên cạnh đó, nghiên cứu chế tạo nanosilica từ vỏ trấu với các đặc tính tương tự là một hướng đi mới giúp nâng cao tính ứng dụng và giá trị kinh tế của vật liệu