Financial inclusion for stability: access to bank deposits and the deposit growth during the Global Financial Crisis

Title on paper: Financial Inclusion for Stability: Access to Bank Deposits and the Deposit Growth during the Global Financial CrisisSession: 66 -Asset PricingIn crisis times, depositors get anxious, can run on banks, and withdraw their deposits. Correlated deposit withdrawals of bank deposits could be mitigated if bank deposits are more diversified, i.e. held by more individuals. This paper examines the link between a broader access to bank deposits prior to the 2008 crisis and the dynamics of bank deposit growth in the crisis, while controlling for relevant covariates. Employing the proxies of Honohan (2008) for access to deposits and of Demirguc-Kunt and Klapper (2012) for the use of bank deposits, the authors find that greater access to bank deposits can make the deposit funding base of banks more resilient in times of financial stress. Policy efforts to enhance financial stability should thus focus not only on macroprudential regulation, but also recognize the positive effect of broader access to bank deposits on financial stability.postprin

Governance through trading: does institutional trading discipline empire building and earnings management?

Accounting Session 1: Earnings ManagementThe Conference program's website is located at http://areas.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/conferences/2013cfea/Pages/Final%20Schedule.aspxThis paper empirically identifies an important external corporate governance mechanism through which the institutional trading improves firm values and disciplines managers from conducting value-destroying activities. We propose a reward-punishment intensity (RPI) measure, and show that it is positively related to firm’s subsequent Tobin’s Q. Importantly, we find that firms with higher RPI exhibit less subsequent empire building and earnings management. Furthermore, we show that the exogenous liquidity shock of Decimalization augments the governance effect of institutional trading. We also find that the discipline effect is more pronounced for firms with moderate institutional ownership concentration, higher managers’ wealth-performance sensitivity, and higher trading liquidity, which further supports the governance role of the RPI. The results are robust to using a subsample containing firms with reduced institutional ownership and to using two instrumental variables.postprin

Concomitant t(8;21) and trisomy 4 in a patient with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

The t(8;21)(q22;q22) is a frequently occurring aberration in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (18-20%) and usually correlate with French-America-British (FAB) M2 subtype. Several studies showed that patients carrying this abnormality demonstrated good response to standard chemotherapy but also have a high incidence of disease relapse. Trisomy 4 is a rare and specific chromosomal abnormality occurring in AML M2 or M4 of the FAB subtypes. We report a case of a 33-year-old female with an apparently clinical and hematologic diagnosis of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) in whom cytogenetic analysis revealed an abnormal karyotype with trisomy 4, in addition to t(8;21). Trisomy 4 and t(8;21) in a patient with AML is rare. The significance of t(8;21) with trisomy 4 in AML are unclear but patients bearing this abnormality are associated with a poor prognosis

Does short selling discipline overinvestment?

We explore the disciplining effect of short selling on overinvestment. Firms with more stock lending supply have higher abnormal announcement stock returns of acquiring firms, lower subsequent abnormal capital investments, and longer spells between large investments, and higher subsequent Tobin’s Q and ROA. Alleviating the endogeneity concern, our multivariate difference-in-difference analysis shows that this disciplinary force of lending supply is more effective for firms in the Regulation SHO-PILOT Program. We identify two mechanisms through which short selling disciplines managers: managers’ wealth-performance sensitivity and likelihood of hostile takeovers. Additionally, the disciplinary force only exists for non-financial-constrained firms and nonall-cash M&A deals.postprin

Ex-Day Returns of Stock Distributions: An Anchoring Explanation

We offer a new anchoring explanation for the ex-day abnormal returns of stock distributions including stock dividend distributions, splits, and reverse splits. We propose that investors tend to anchor on cum-day prices in valuating ex-distribution stocks, resulting in a positive association between ex-day returns and adjustment factors. We find that this positive return-factor relation exists for all three types of stock distributions and in both the pre- and post-decimalization periods. Furthermore, we find that this positive return-factor relation is more pronounced among events that are more subject to investors’ anchoring propensity, featured by less investor attention, greater arbitrage difficulty, greater valuation uncertainty, less investor sophistication, and higher market sentiment. Lastly, using brokerage account data, we show that stocks that are traded by investors with more investment experience demonstrate a weaker return-factor relation.postprin

Does short selling discipline managerial empire building?

The Conference program's website is located at http://www.fma.org/Tokyo/TokyoProgramPrelim.htmSession 20 - Monitors and Governance QualityThis paper explores the discipline effect of short selling on managerial empire building. Employing short-selling data from 2002-2011, we document a negative association between the stock lending supply and the subsequent abnormal capital investment. We also find a positive association between the lending supply and the mergers and acquisitions announcement returns of acquiring firms. Firms with higher lending supplies also have higher Tobin’s Q in the subsequent year. In addition, the discipline effect is stronger for firms with higher managers’ wealth-performance sensitivity and with lower financial constraints, and for stock-financing acquisition deals. Alleviating the endogeneity concern, our multivariate difference-in-difference analysis shows that the lending supply is a more effective discipline force for firms that are in the Regulation SHO-Pilot Program during 2005 to 2007.postprin

An update on radiation therapy for brain metastases

published_or_final_versio

“Does Short-term variation in fetal heart rate predict fetal acidaemia?” A Systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: To evaluate the association of short-term variation (STV) of the fetal heart rate in predicting fetal acidaemia at birth. Methods: The search strategy employed searching of electronic databases (MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar) and reference lists of relevant studies. Data was extracted from studies, adhering strictly to the following criteria: singleton pregnancy at ≥ 24 weeks gestation, computerised CTG (index test) and calculation of STV before delivery. The outcome measure was arterial pH assessed in cord blood obtained at birth. Results: Meta-analysis showed moderate accuracy of STV in predicting fetal acidaemia with a sensitivity of 0.57 (95% CI: 0.45 to 0.68), specificity of 0.81 (95% CI: 0.69 to 0.89), positive likelihood ratio of 3.14 (95% CI: 2.13 to 4.63) and negative likelihood ratio of 0.58, (95% CI: 0.46 to 0.72). However, in intra-uterine growth restricted fetuses, a small improvement in detecting acidaemia was observed; with a sensitivity of 0.63, (95% CI: 0.49 to 0.75) and negative likelihood ratio of 0.50, (95% CI: 0.31 to 0.80). Conclusion: STV appears to be a moderate predictor for fetal acidaemia. However, its usefulness as a stand-alone test in predicting acidaemia in clinical setting remains to be determined

A single sub-km Kuiper Belt object from a stellar Occultation in archival data

The Kuiper belt is a remnant of the primordial Solar System. Measurements of its size distribution constrain its accretion and collisional history, and the importance of material strength of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). Small, sub-km sized, KBOs elude direct detection, but the signature of their occultations of background stars should be detectable. Observations at both optical and X-ray wavelengths claim to have detected such occultations, but their implied KBO abundances are inconsistent with each other and far exceed theoretical expectations. Here, we report an analysis of archival data that reveals an occultation by a body with a 500 m radius at a distance of 45 AU. The probability of this event to occur due to random statistical fluctuations within our data set is about 2%. Our survey yields a surface density of KBOs with radii larger than 250 m of 2.1^{+4.8}_{-1.7} x 10^7 deg^{-2}, ruling out inferred surface densities from previous claimed detections by more than 5 sigma. The fact that we detected only one event, firmly shows a deficit of sub-km sized KBOs compared to a population extrapolated from objects with r>50 km. This implies that sub-km sized KBOs are undergoing collisional erosion, just like debris disks observed around other stars.Comment: To appear in Nature on December 17, 2009. Under press embargo until 1800 hours London time on 16 December. 19 pages; 7 figure

ASCORE: an up-to-date cardiovascular risk score for hypertensive patients reflecting contemporary clinical practice developed using the (ASCOT-BPLA) trial data.

A number of risk scores already exist to predict cardiovascular (CV) events. However, scores developed with data collected some time ago might not accurately predict the CV risk of contemporary hypertensive patients that benefit from more modern treatments and management. Using data from the randomised clinical trial Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial-BPLA, with 15 955 hypertensive patients without previous CV disease receiving contemporary preventive CV management, we developed a new risk score predicting the 5-year risk of a first CV event (CV death, myocardial infarction or stroke). Cox proportional hazard models were used to develop a risk equation from baseline predictors. The final risk model (ASCORE) included age, sex, smoking, diabetes, previous blood pressure (BP) treatment, systolic BP, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, fasting glucose and creatinine baseline variables. A simplified model (ASCORE-S) excluding laboratory variables was also derived. Both models showed very good internal validity. User-friendly integer score tables are reported for both models. Applying the latest Framingham risk score to our data significantly overpredicted the observed 5-year risk of the composite CV outcome. We conclude that risk scores derived using older databases (such as Framingham) may overestimate the CV risk of patients receiving current BP treatments; therefore, 'updated' risk scores are needed for current patients