Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2021-02-05"
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- Social capital and firm performance : the resiliency of Corporate Social Responsibility to COVID-19Publication . Martins, Joana Pires; Bonfim, Diana Carina Ribeiro GuimarãesThe COVID-19 pandemic caught the entire globe unprepared. The quick viral spread, the stringent lockdowns, and the dramatic response of capital markets have perturbed the economic and social order on an unprecedented scale and lightning speed. This Dissertation investigates the impact of social capital, measured by corporate social responsibility (CSR), on the financial performance of U.S. firms during the pandemic-induced market turmoil (March-July 2020). The results show that high-CSR firms experienced lower risk exposure and superior operating profit margins relative to low-CSR firms. However, there is no evidence that CSR provided such resilient power for the performance of mean returns. The collected wisdom points to a clear stock return underperformance associated with very low CSR scores, but refutes the idea that excelling in CSR offers the highest returns. Another prominent result is the fact that investing in CSR is especially fruitful in periods of crisis; the effect is weaker or even null outside the crisis.
- Is Fintech M&A Value-additive? Evidence from acquirers stock returnsPublication . Carvalhosa, João Maria Freire de Andrade; Andrade, João Guerreiro Freire deThe following dissertation present an analysis of the effect of the short-term and long-term performance in Fintech mergers and acquisitions. The analysis focus on the performance of acquirers that acquire Fintech firms between 2018 and 2019. A sample of 79 acquiring firms is analyzed in this research and an event study was performed. The short-term performance was measured by calculating the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) around the announcement date in four different event windows estimated by three different models. The mean cumulative abnormal returns are positive around 2% and 3%. In the research was proven that the acquisition of targets of the Fintech industry lead in general to positive and significant market reactions only with few exceptions for the Market Model and Mean-Adjusted model in one of the event windows. The short-term performance negatively depends only on the deal amount acquisition. The long-term performance was measured by calculating the buy-and-hold abnormal returns (BHARs) for 1 day after the announcement date to 200 days after the announcement date. The same methods to calculate expected returns were used as in the calculation of CARs. The buy-and hold abnormal returns are negative for the three methods used. The long-term performance negatively depends on the short-term performance.
- Congruência e incongruência emocional na memorização de estímulos visuais em diferentes grupos de idadePublication . Caetano, Catarina Sofia Batista; Ribeiro, Filipa Delegado Neiva CorreiaIntrodução: A memória episódica é um sistema cognitivo que contextualiza a informação no tempo e no espaço. É responsável pelos processos de codificação, armazenamento e recuperação dessa mesma informação, permitindo-nos retê-la e recordá-la. A capacidade de recuperar informação pode ser influenciada por vários fatores como a idade e as emoções. A recuperação da informação pode ser feita por evocação ou por reconhecimento sendo o efeito da idade mais notório na evocação. Através da apresentação de diferentes imagens associadas a sons musicais com carácter emocional, em situações de congruência e incongruência, pretende-se perceber o impacto das emoções na capacidade de memorização de imagens, em dois grupos de idades. Metodologia: Neste projeto participaram no total 30 sujeitos, divididos em dois grupos de idades: grupo 1 – 18 aos 30 anos e grupo 2 – dos 50 aos 65 anos. A cada indivíduo foram apresentadas na 1ª tarefa, em formato powerpoint, várias imagens (IAPS) associadas a excertos musicais (ambos os tipos de estímulos com carácter emocional de alegria e medo), nas diferentes condições (congruência, incongruência e unissensorial). Na 2ª tarefa – reconhecimento – foram adicionadas 60 novas imagens distratoras às 60 da tarefa anterior. Resultados: Na tarefa de reconhecimento, podemos afirmar que não existem diferenças entre os dois grupos de idade, tendo, ambos, igual desempenho. Analisando o efeito de congruência, observam-se diferenças significativas, sendo a condição incongruente superior à congruente e esta última menos influente que a condição sem som. Por último, não existe interação entre a idade e o carácter emocional dos estímulos no reconhecimento, sendo que ambos os grupos recordaram mais imagens com emoções positivas que negativas. Conclusões: Os resultados obtidos vão ao encontro da hipótese esperada para a influência da idade. Todavia, contrariam a hipótese de congruência, sendo justificado pelo aumento da atenção dada aos estímulos incongruentes. E a condição unissensorial é superior a bissensorial pela ausência da música (que interfere com a atenção). Não se verificou influência da idade e da emoção no reconhecimento, visto que o viés positivo é menos frequente acontecer no reconhecimento
- The future of industries : how will personalization using artificial intelligence disrupt the wellness industry in EuropePublication . Mykhailenko, Anna; Rajsingh, PeterThe wellness industry has been constantly growing over the past decades due to breakthroughs in the field of wellness, consumer awareness, and promotions for a healthier way of life. This calls for personalization with the use of new technology implemented in the wellness industry to provide these consumers with more accurate programs and results based on their individual needs and requirements. Personalization would entail the use of technology based on individual health factors to create a personalized wellness program that suits the individual. Within the boundaries of new technology lies artificial intelligence. The wellness industry has been using artificial intelligence within the scope of their programs to provide high-quality results at lower costs optimizing the wellness process. This research aims to study the impact of artificial intelligence in the wellness industry in the European market as a potential disruptor by creating personalized programs for every consumer using wellness related services shaping the future landscape of the wellness industry. The main factor that contributed to the results in this research is that artificial intelligence will coexist heavily with traditional wellness services in the future and will not completely dominate the wellness market. Artificial intelligence creates personalized programs at lower costs and higher quality; however, the human aspect must remain for psychological and motivational factors, privacy and transparency constraints, and general human empathy.
- The impact of notional interest deduction on the capital structure of SME in BelgiumPublication . Chassart, Aymeric Dorothée Xavier Dumont de; Bonfim, Diana Carina Ribeiro GuimarãesThe intent of this dissertation is to analyze the effect of the introduction in 2006 of notional interest deductions (NID) on the capital structure of Belgian small and medium companies. It deepens the existing literature by analyzing the heterogeneity of the effect on 16 different economic sectors and by trying to isolate what type of increase in assets or decrease in liabilities was responsible for the change in capital structure. Additionally, this paper investigates if Belgian firms might have optimized their balance sheets in order to benefit from more notional interest deductions. To perform this, accounting data from 2001 to 2007 is gathered on an average of 255,596 non-financial Belgian companies through the BACH database, which is based on the National Bank of Belgium database. Empirical results conclude that Belgian SMEs decreased their leverage ratio by 2.8%, from which 0.2% were caused by the account ‘other non-financial creditors’. Additionally, the decrease in leverage ratio was similar for the majority of the sectors analyzed, except for the Mining and Quarrying sector and the Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply sector, for which the ratio increased. For the other sectors, results show that the decrease in leverage ratio was influenced by an increase in assets and not a decrease in liabilities.
- A discriminação racial no acesso à justiçaPublication . Gomes, Beatriz da Mota; Botelho, Catarina Isabel Tomaz SantosA presente tese centra-se na temática das práticas discriminatórias com base na raça ou etnia que, ainda hoje, subsistem no acesso à justiça. Neste âmbito, presta-se atenção à jurisprudência internacional, regional europeia e nacional referente à discriminação sofrida por minorias raciais ou étnicas com base na sua raça ou grupo étnico e ao acesso à justiça. O nosso principal objetivo consiste em saber se, em alguma fase do acesso à justiça, uma pessoa pertencente a uma minoria racial ou étnica recebe um tratamento igual ou diferente de uma pessoa que não pertence a nenhuma minoria.
- Managing "time" : the digital challenge of century old luxury watch brandsPublication . Iranmanesh, Ario; Leglise, LaureLuxury watch brands have been slow to adapt to the contemporary world, where the consumers research and consumption is increasingly digital. Literature showed that brands and their heritage were not ideal to blend with digital. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to understand how luxury watch brands can maintain and implement their heritage, in order to stay relevant in the digitized world of consumers. To answer this research question, we conducted a multiple case study on three luxury watch brands: Cartier, Breitling and IWC . Findings suggest that brands implement their heritage in unorthodox and creative ways to construct engaging, emotional but also educating experiences for the consumers. Crucially, the brands make sure that digital initiatives are not purely innovative but true to their heritage, thus holding authentic value and connections with the past and present. Ensuring contemporary relevancy of the heritage and their stories, is ultimately establishing relevancy and timelessness for the brand itself, and is the key for another century of longevity for brands.
- Predicting the credit risk of companies : can structural models add value to the determination of probabilities of default in logit models?Publication . Waldthausen, Maximilian von; Bonfim, Diana Carina Ribeiro GuimarãesThis dissertation aims to investigate whether structural models have the ability to improve the predictive power of logit models. For this purpose, the distance-to-default (DD) metric, obtained from a simplified version of the structural model by Eisdorfer, Goyal and Zhdanov (2019), is integrated as another explanatory variable into the logit model by Campbell, Hilscher & Szilagyi (2008). A data set of 7.257 non-financial US-firms between 1983 and 2019 is used. The performance of the combined model is evaluated in both, in- and out-of-sample across time horizons of 6, 12, 24 and 36 months. In the in-sample evaluation, the distance-to-default reached significance for all considered time-horizons and led to an increase of the McFadden pseudo-R2. However, in the out-of-sample evaluation, the total number of right predictions decreased in the additive model compared to the benchmark model. These results suggest that the introduction of DD does not improve the predictive power of the logit model. As it was reasonable to assume that large parts of the DD variable were already captured by other explanatory variables, a follow up test was performed that did not verify this assumption. Based on these results, it is overall concluded that the distance-to-default obtained from the simplified EGZ model is not able to improve the performance of the CHS logit model.
- Urban air mobility : how automotive companies view the marketPublication . Theis, Felix; Rajsingh, PeterIn the 21st century, urban areas are characterized by congested roads and bad air quality due to CO2 emissions. The current transport infrastructure is reaching its limits and experts believe that urban air mobility could improve traffic and preserve the environment. Electric air taxis, which can carry two to five people and operate nearly emission free, can be a means for that. Besides small aviation startups, some automotive companies are also interested in entering the market. This dissertation revealed that urban air mobility firms and automotive companies have an interest in collaborating with one another to exploit synergies and shape the future of mobility. A few sporadic collaborations already exist, which will probably increase in the future, according to the conducted expert interviews. In particular, there will be an opportunity in the joint development of sales / branding strategies or digital mobility platforms. Furthermore, a scenario analysis showed that the most likely scenario of urban air mobility in 5 – 10 years will be characterized by a moderate adoption of the new passenger transport service. Many regulatory hurdles and a low public acceptance will complicate the market entry. However, experts were convinced that electric air taxis will eventually enter the market and revolutionize urban mobility, reduce congestion and preserve the environment.
- The guarantee of the data subject rights within data sharing with third parties : comparative analyses under the scope of the GDPR and the LEDPublication . Mota, Filipa Mota e Costa Moreira da; Calvão, Maria Filipa Pires Urbano CostaThis dissertation sets its objective into the analyze of the data sharing with third parties and the guarantee of the data subject rights in the perspective of the Data Protection Regulation and the Directive 2016/680. In this analyzes the responsible for the data sharing will be a private company and the third parties, the competent authorities, in particular the judicial authorities. We will start by analyzing, in a comparative perspective, the rights in the regime of the Data Protection Regulation and the Directive 2016/608, in this context we will analyze the data sharing between private companies and the judicial authorities defining which law will regulate, and at what stage, this sharing. Finally, we will analyze the point of confrontation of the two regimes in the scope of the rights, emphasizing the right of access and the fundamental role that it occupies in this problem.