Effects of sample mass and macrofossil type on radiocarbon dating of arctic and boreal lake sediments

Dating lake sediments by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C analysis of terrestrial plant macrofossils overcomes one of the main problems associated with dating bulk sediment samples, i.e., the presence of old organic matter. Even so, many AMS dates from arctic and boreal sites appear to misrepresent the age of the sediment. To understand the nature of these apparent dating anomalies better, we conducted a series of 14C dating experiments using samples from Alaskan and Siberian lake-sediment cores. First, to test whether our analytical procedures introduced a sample-mass bias, we obtained 14C dates for different-sized pieces of single woody macrofossils. In these sample-mass experiments, statistically equivalent ages were found for samples as small as 0.05 mg C. Secondly, to assess whether macrofossil type influenced dating results, we conducted sample-type experiments in which 14C dates were obtained for different macrofossil types sieved from the same depth in the sediment. We dated materials from multiple levels in sediment cores from Upper Capsule Lake (North Slope, northern Alaska) and Grizzly Lake (Copper River Basin, southern Alaska) and from single depths in other records from northern Alaska. In several of the experiments there were significant discrepancies between dates for different plant tissues, and in most cases wood and charcoal were older than other macrofossil types, usually by several hundred years. This pattern suggests that 14C dates for woody macrofossils may misrepresent the age of the sediment by centuries, perhaps because of their longer terrestrial residence time and the potential in-built age of longlived plants. This study identifies why some 14C dates appear to be inconsistent with the overall age-depth trend of a lake-sediment record, and it may guide the selection of 14C samples in future studies.

Three Essays on Age and Firm Performance

Old captains at the helm: Chairman age and firm performance Urs Waelchli and Jonas Zeller December, 2012 This paper examines whether the chairmen of the board (COBs) impose their life-cycles on the firms over which they preside. Using a large sample of unlisted firms we find a robust negative relation between COB age and firm performance. COBs age much like ‘ordinary’ people. Their cognitive abilities deteriorate and they experience significant shifts in motivation. Deteriorating cognitive abilities are the main driver of the performance effect that we observe. The results imply that succession planning problems in unlisted firms are real. Mandatory retirement age clauses cannot solve these problems. Corporate Aging around the World Jonas Zeller January, 2014 This paper examines whether firms internationally age as US firms do (Loderer, Stulz, and Wälchli, 2013). Using a large panel, I find that Tobin’s Q monotonically falls with firm Age across all nineteen countries in the sample. The decrease varies across countries but is generally extremely robust and economically significant. ROA, sales growth, and market share decrease over a firm’s lifetime in most countries as well. Furthermore, older firms reduce their capital expenditures and R&D outlays. Instead, they distribute more cash to their shareholders. Overall, the results suggest that corporate aging is not confined to the US but is a genuine phenomenon that affects listed firms worldwide. This evidence supports the hypothesis that corporate aging is driven by managers who optimally focus on managing their assets in place and neglect the development of growth opportunities. I finally ask whether the managers’ choice and with it the magnitude of the decline in Tobin’s Q is a function of country-level institutional settings. I find that most notably firms age faster in countries where employees are relatively well protected by labor regulation. Is employment protection the fountain of corporate youth? Claudio Loderer, Urs Wälchli, Jonas Zeller* September 2014 Acharya, Baghai, and Subramanian (2012, 2013) find that employment protection legislation (EPL) encourages innovation. We argue that this effect should be particularly strong in mature firms. We would therefore also expect EPL to boost growth opportunities. Using the natural Experiment created by the staggered passage of changes in EPL across seventeen countries, we find evidence that employment protection legislation does indeed stimulate Innovation efforts, especially in mature firms. The effect is stronger in countries in which patents are owned by the firm and in the context of regular contracts. Consistent with that, EPL encourages risk taking. Overall, however, there is Little evidence that the effect of EPL on innovation effort translates into higher firm value, not even in mature firms. EPL does motivate employees in those firms to put in a greater effort, as evidenced by stronger sales growth. Yet it also increases costs, reduces profitability, and depresses Tobin’s Q ratios in all firms, especially the mature ones, possibly because of the rigidities that characterize these firms [Loderer, Stulz, and Waelchli (2014)].

How does firm heterogeneity information impact the estimation of embodied carbon emissions in Chinese exports?

Using an augmented Chinese input–output table in which information about firm ownership and type of traded goods are explicitly reported, we show that ignoring firm heterogeneity causes embodied CO2 emissions in Chinese exports to be overestimated by 20% at the national level, with huge differences at the sector level, for 2007. This is because different types of firm that are allocated to the same sector of the conventional Chinese input–output table vary greatly in terms of market share, production technology and carbon intensity. This overestimation of export-related carbon emissions would be even higher if it were not for the fact that 80% of CO2 emissions embodied in exports of foreign-owned firms are, in fact, emitted by Chinese-owned firms upstream of the supply chain. The main reason is that the largest CO2 emitter, the electricity sector located upstream in Chinese domestic supply chains, is strongly dominated by Chinese-owned firms with very high carbon intensity.

Third-party complaints and firm performance: an application in Spanish banking

This article focuses on the impact of third-party complaints on firm performance. We propose two research hypotheses, which are developed from the literature of dissatisfaction, emotions, and economics. The methodology is based on an event study to estimate variation in firm share returns in the stock market due to the publication of the Annual Complaints Service Report by the Bank of Spain; as well as a regression analysis to examine the impact of the number of complaints per branch on the variation obtained. The empirical focus is on a sample of eleven banks to which complaints were made and which were quoted on the Spanish Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2001. The results show a negative impact of the publication of these annual complaint reports on the share returns of the banks concerned. Additionally, these returns have a negative relationship with the number of complaints per branch.

Exports and Firm Productivity: The effect of US steel safeguards. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 19/January 2011

This paper investigates possible negative effects of the 2002 US steel safeguards on productivity of Eurozone steel companies. The analysis is based on an extensive literature which predicts that exporting firms not only are bigger and more productive, but also that exporting itself has positive effects, improving efficiency and leading to better utilization of firm resources. The paper investigates a large sample of EU-13 steel producing firms, in the 1998 - 2005 period. Using three methods of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) estimation among which the Olley-Pakes semiparametric estimator, we first calculate the productivity levels of companies, and then check for any unusual fluctuation in this performance variable. We find that in 2002 there has been a significant drop in TFP. The paper is an invitation for further research in this field, given the possible important effects of safeguard measures on exporters.

Demographic and Geographic Heterogeneity between Subgroups of Cyclists

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

How does ownership structure affect capital structure and firm value?:Recent evidence from East Asia

The present paper examines the effects of ownership structures on capital structure and firm valuation. It argues that the effects of separation of control from cash flow rights on capital structure and firm value also depend on the separation of control from management as well as on legal rules and enforcement defining investors' protection. We obtain firm-level panel data (three stage least squares, 3SLS) estimates from four of the East Asian countries worst affected by the last crisis. There is evidence that the general wisdom that higher control than cash flow rights may lower firm value may be reversed among owner-managed family firms in the sample countries. © 2007 The Authors Journal compilation © 2007 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Optimal geographic diversification and firm performance:evidence from the U.K.

This paper examines the relationship between multinationality and firm performance. The analysis is based on a sample of over 400 UK multinationals, and encompasses both service sector and manufacturing sector multinationals. This paper confirms the non-linear relationship between performance and multinationality that is reported elsewhere in the literature, but offers further analysis of this relationship. Specifically, by correcting for endogeneity in the investment decision, and for shocks in productivity across countries, the paper demonstrates that the returns to multinationality are greater than those that have been reported elsewhere, and persist to higher degrees of international diversification.

Red capitalists:political connections and firm performance in China

Using a unique firm level data, this paper analyses the role of political connections in the post-entry performance of private start-up companies in China. It documents robust evidence that political affiliation enhances firms' survival and growth prospects. But interestingly politically neutral start-ups enjoy faster productivity improvements conditional on survival. In addition, the benefits of political connections are largely confined to firms associated with local or top level governments, and they are more pronounced in capital-intensive industries. We conclude that the close association between the state and a segment of the business community is leading to sub-optimal resource allocation in the economy by interfering with the process of market selection.

Export propensity, export intensity and firm performance:the role of the entrepreneurial founding team

We investigate how the characteristics and experience of the entrepreneurial founding team (EFT) affect the export orientation and subsequent performance of the businesses they establish, while allowing for the mutually reinforcing relationship between exporting and productivity. Using a sample of UK technology-based firms, we hypothesise and confirm that the set of EFT human capital needed for entering export markets is different from that required for succeeding in export markets. Commercial and managerial experience helps firms become exporters, but once over the exporting hurdle it is education, both general and specific, that has a substantially positive effect. The overall pattern of human capital effects on productivity is similar to those for export propensity. We also find evidence that productive firms are more likely both to enter export markets and to be export intensive, and that exporting boosts subsequent firm productivity.

Essays on firm behavior and firm performance

This dissertation comprises three individual chapters in an effort to examine different explanatory variables that affect firm performance. Chapter Two proposes an additional determinant of firm survival. Based on a detailed examination of firm survival in the British automobile industry between 1895 and 1970, we conclude that a firm's selection of submarket (defined by quality level) influenced survival. In contrast to findings for the US automobile industry, there is no evidence of first-mover advantage in the market as a whole. However, we do find evidence of first-mover advantage after conditioning on submarket choice. Chapter Three examines the effects of product line expansion on firm performance in terms of survival time. Based on a detailed examination of firm survival time in the British automobile industry between 1895 and 1970, we find that diversification exerts a positive effect on firm survival. Furthermore, our findings support the literature with respect to the impacts of submarket types, pre-entry experience, and timing of entry on firm survival time. Chapter Four examines corporate diversification in U.S. manufacturing and service firms. We develop measures of how related a firm's diverse activities are using input-output data and the NAILS classification to construct indexes of "vertical relatedness" and "complementarity". Strong relationships between these two measures are found. We utilize profitability and excess value as the measure for firm performance. Econometric analysis reveals that there is no relationship between the degree of relatedness of diversification and firm performance for the study period.

The impact of institutional complexity and top management characteristics on executive compensation and firm performance

While most studies take a dyadic view when examining the environmental difference between the home country of a multinational enterprise (MNE) and a particular foreign country, they ignore that an MNE is managing a network of subsidiaries embedded in diverse environments. Additionally, neither the impacts of global environments on top executives nor the effects of top executives’ capabilities to handle institutional complexity are fully explored. Thus, using a three-essay format, this dissertation tried to fill these gaps by addressing the effects of institutional complexity and top management characteristics on top executive compensation and firm performance. ^ Essay 1 investigated the impact of an MNE’s institutional complexity, or the diversity of national institutions facing an MNE’s network of subsidiaries, on the top management team (TMT) compensation. This essay proposed that greater political and cultural complexity leads to not only greater TMT total compensation but also to a greater portion of TMT compensation linked with long-term performance. The arguments are supported in this essay by using an unbalanced panel dataset including 296 U.S. firms with 1,340 observations. ^ Essay 2 explored TMT social capital and its moderating role on value creation and appropriation by the chief executive officer (CEO). Using a sample with 548 U.S. firms and 2,010 observations, it found that greater TMT social capital does facilitate the effects of CEO intellectual capital and social capital on firm growth. Finally, essay 3 examined the performance implications for the fit between managerial information-processing capabilities and institutional complexity. It proposed that institutional complexity is associated with the needs of information-processing. On the other hand, smaller TMT turnover and larger TMT size reflect larger managerial information-processing capabilities. Consequently, superior performance is achieved by the match among institutional complexity, TMT turnover, and TMT size. All hypotheses in essay 3 are supported in a sample of 301 U.S. firms and 1,404 observations. ^ To conclude, this dissertation advances and extends our knowledge on the roles of institutional environments and top executives on firm performance and top executive compensation.^

Selection and passage of county land preservation voter referendum: The role of government

County jurisdictions in America are increasingly exercising self-government in the provision of public community services through the context of second order federalism. In states exercising this form of contemporary governance, county governments with "reformed" policy-making structures and professional management practices, have begun to rival or surpass municipalities in the delivery of local services with regional implications such as environmental protection (Benton 2002, 2003; Marando and Reeves, 1993). ^ The voter referendum, a form of direct democracy, is an important component of county land preservation and environmental protection governmental policies. The recent growth and success of land preservation voter referendums nationwide reflects an increase in citizen participation in government and their desire to protect vacant land and its natural environment from threats of over-development, urbanization and sprawl, loss of open space and farmland, deterioration of ecosystems, and inadequate park and recreational amenities. ^ The study's design employs a sequential, mixed method. First, a quantitative approach employs the Heckman two-step model. It is fitted with variables for the non-random sample of 227 voter referendum counties and all non-voter referendum counties in the U.S. from 1988 to 2009. Second, the qualitative data collected from the in-depth investigation of three South Florida county case studies with twelve public administrator interviews is transformed for integration with the quantitative findings. The purpose of the qualitative method is to complement, explain and enrich the statistical analysis of county demographic, socio-economic, terrain, regional, governance and government, political preference, environmentalism, and referendum-specific factors. ^ The research finds that government factors are significant in terms of the success of land preservation voter referendums; more specifically, the presence of self-government authority (home rule charter), a reformed structure (county administrator/manager or elected executive), and environmental interest groups. In addition, this study concludes that successful counties are often located coastal, exhibit population and housing growth, and have older and more educated citizens who vote democratic in presidential elections. The analysis of case study documents and public administrator interviews finds that pragmatic considerations of timing, local politics and networking of regional stakeholders are also important features of success. Further research is suggested utilizing additional public participation, local government and public administration factors.^

Three essays on corporate taxation : financial reporting, value, and firm creation

Doutoramento em Gestão

Selection and Passage of County Land Preservation Voter Referendum: The Role of Government

County jurisdictions in America are increasingly exercising self-government in the provision of public community services through the context of second order federalism. In states exercising this form of contemporary governance, county governments with “reformed” policy-making structures and professional management practices, have begun to rival or surpass municipalities in the delivery of local services with regional implications such as environmental protection (Benton 2002, 2003; Marando and Reeves, 1993). The voter referendum, a form of direct democracy, is an important component of county land preservation and environmental protection governmental policies. The recent growth and success of land preservation voter referendums nationwide reflects an increase in citizen participation in government and their desire to protect vacant land and its natural environment from threats of over-development, urbanization and sprawl, loss of open space and farmland, deterioration of ecosystems, and inadequate park and recreational amenities. The study’s design employs a sequential, mixed method. First, a quantitative approach employs the Heckman two-step model. It is fitted with variables for the non-random sample of 227 voter referendum counties and all non-voter referendum counties in the U.S. from 1988 to 2009. Second, the qualitative data collected from the in-depth investigation of three South Florida county case studies with twelve public administrator interviews is transformed for integration with the quantitative findings. The purpose of the qualitative method is to complement, explain and enrich the statistical analysis of county demographic, socio-economic, terrain, regional, governance and government, political preference, environmentalism, and referendum-specific factors. The research finds that government factors are significant in terms of the success of land preservation voter referendums; more specifically, the presence of self-government authority (home rule charter), a reformed structure (county administrator/manager or elected executive), and environmental interest groups. In addition, this study concludes that successful counties are often located coastal, exhibit population and housing growth, and have older and more educated citizens who vote democratic in presidential elections. The analysis of case study documents and public administrator interviews finds that pragmatic considerations of timing, local politics and networking of regional stakeholders are also important features of success. Further research is suggested utilizing additional public participation, local government and public administration factors.