Government Oil Policy and Its Effect on Domestic & Offshore Oil Production

To date the petroleum industry is second only to the Department of Defense in its stimulation of ocean technology. By the end of 1968, American petroleum companies had invested over 13 billion dollars on the continental shelves of the United States. The development of submersibles, man in the sea, instruments, seismic surveys, mapping and charting, and development of ocean structures and engineering have all been profoundly effected by this massive injection of capital. It is obviously of interest, therefore, to consider policies which affect offshore oil exploration and development. This paper is confined to analyzing three such economic policies in terms of their effects on the industry, their costs, and alternatives

The Implications Of Granting Backdated Options

Option backdating has recently been receiving extensive attention.  The remarkable pattern of stock prices systematically declining before and increasing after the granting of options has been documented in research papers for approximately a decade but only recently have firms been facing charges of improper procedures associated with this pattern.  One associated issue remaining to be investigated is what the implications are for shareholders of affected firms.  This paper addresses that issue.  It finds that there are marked negative implications for stockholders.  On average, when investigations into backdating are announced firms lose approximately 11% of their market value.  This translates into an average decline of more than half a billion dollars in market capitalization in the month leading up to the formal announcement of an investigation

The ongoing contributions of spin-off research and practice to understanding corporate restructuring and wealth creation: $100 billion in 1 decade

AbstractSince the 1980s, analysis of spin-offs has become a key line of inquiry in corporate finance. This paper reviews the theory and empirical research papers about spin-off restructuring and measures the monetary value created by spin-offs. First, we document the valuation impact of spin-offs for the divesting firms and then examine such subtleties as the interesting (positive) ex-dividend day price impact and the myriad other details associated with these transactions. This study provides a review of the now extensive research into spin-off divestitures. It looks into equity price reactions around the announcements of 249 voluntary spin-offs undertaken by US public companies over the interval 2007–2017. The abnormal returns associated with recent spin-off divestitures are of the same order of magnitude as those from the earlier papers, showing the sustained statistical significance and new economic materiality measures. With more firms undertaking spin-offs and the positive abnormal returns continuing to be substantial, the clear implication is that the overall monetary value creation resulting from spin-offs has increased markedly. Finally, and in a first for spin-off research, this paper calibrates the monetary value created by spin-offs despite the voluminous research of the topic. It establishes that spin-offs create large monetary value increments for divesting a firm's stockholders—almost $100 billion in the interval 2007–2017

Modeling Groundwater Inundation Under Sea-Level Rise Scenarios in the Surficial Aquifer of Bogue Banks, North

Bogue Banks in North Carolina is expected to be impacted by sea-level rise, but the impact on the subsurface groundwater system is not well understood. A three-dimensional Visual MODFLOW steady-state model and ArcGIS 10.3 were used to quantify the extent of marine and groundwater inundation by the year 2100. Visual MODFLOW was used to simulate the water table on Bogue Banks, first at current sea-level then at different sea-level rise scenarios. The results from Visual MODFLOW were then imported into ArcGIS to calculate the area inundated by marine and groundwater inundation. Sea-level rise between 0.2 and 1.4 m above present conditions may occur at Bogue Banks and seven scenarios were envisioned as appropriate intervals to forecast. A total of 29 monitoring wells were installed in the surficial aquifer of Bogue Banks and equipped with water level loggers to collect groundwater data. Aquifer properties were constrained by studying sediment cores collected during well construction. Marine and groundwater inundation combine to impair 33% to 79% of the island by the year 2100, with 43% to 51% of the island being inundated in the most likely scenarios of 0.4 to 0.6 m of sea-level rise above current conditions. Marine inundation estimates range from 5% to 31% with 11% to 17% inundation in the most likely scenarios. Groundwater inundation estimates ranged from a minimum of 28% to 48% of the area not impaired by marine inundation, with the most likely range indicating 33% to 40% inundation. The results indicate that as sea-level rise increases in severity, groundwater inundation covers a much larger area of the island than marine impairment. The results of the study therefore suggest that as sea-level rises, residents of Bogue Banks may need to account for marine and groundwater inundation as the environment changes and sea-level rises. A greater understanding of the combined impacts of groundwater and marine inundation on barrier islands may be useful for coastal residents in mitigating or adapting to changes due to sea-level rise not just in North Carolina, but globally

The Informational Content And Valuation Ramifications Of Earnings Restatements

This paper analyzes the market responses to different categories of accounting restatements.  Accounting restatements have been occurring with increasing frequency in recent years, generating significant discussion as to their causes and consequences.  We examine both of these dimensions of restatements.  We identify 9 categories into which restatements can be classified.  When examining their valuation consequences, we find statistically significant negative revaluations for the overall sample. However, there is substantial variation in valuation changes across the various categories of restatements.  Investors react the most negatively to restatements resulting from accounting issues (i.e. errors/irregularities/method-changes).  This is greatly magnified when there is a contemporaneous change in the firm’s CEO.  At the other end of the spectrum, we find positive reactions to restatements that reflect and provide the accounting calibration of previously announced settlements of legal issues.  A notable feature of the findings is that for some categories there are valuation changes in response to accounting restatements which are seemingly just recording the implications of previously announced corporate happenings.  In the context of efficient market perspectives, some of these changes at the time of the restatement announcement itself are somewhat surprising

The Association Between –Market Risk Disclosure Reporting And Firm Risk: The Impact Of SEC FRR No. 48

SEC FRR No. 48 requires that all firms report their market risk exposures using one or more of three alternative formats for disclosure: tabular format, sensitivity analysis, or Value at Risk (VaR). In this paper we examine how the method chosen affects a firm’s risk as measured by total risk, the cost of equity, and firm specific risk. We find that firms using VaR have higher total risk and firm specific risk than firms using sensitivity analysis. Conversely, firms employing tabular disclosure generally have lower but not statistically significant lower total risk, cost of equity, and firm specific risk than firms using sensitivity

Radical-induced hetero-nuclear mixing and low-field 13^{13}C relaxation in solid pyruvic acid

Radicals serve as a source of polarization in dynamic nuclear polarization, but may also act as polarization sink, in particular at low field. Additionally, if the couplings between the electron spins and different nuclear reservoirs are stronger than any of the reservoirs’ couplings to the lattice, radicals can mediate hetero-nuclear polarization transfer. Here, we report radical-enhanced $^{13}$C relaxation in pyruvic acid doped with trityl. Up to 40 K, we find a linear carbon $T_{1}$ field dependence between 5 mT and 2 T. We model the dependence quantitatively, and find that the presence of trityl accelerates direct hetero-nuclear polarization transfer at low fields, while at higher fields $^{13}$C relaxation is diffusion limited. Measurements of hetero-nuclear polarization transfer up to 600 mT confirm the predicted radical-mediated proton–carbon mixing