Search results for "PLASTICS"
showing 10 items of 2724 documents
The Value of Auditor Industry Specialization: Evidence from a Structural Model
2021
ABSTRACT This study investigates the value of auditor industry specialization. In the first step, we use a discrete choice model to derive the first-order demand for auditor industry specialization. Our results reveal that clients have a general preference for auditor industry specialization, relating to both audit firm and audit office specialization. We observe that specializations at the audit firm and audit office level are substitutes. We also find that larger, more complex clients have a stronger demand for industry specialization at the audit office level. In the second step, we use the results from the discrete choice model to quantify the value of auditor industry specialists for c…
Fear Sells: Determinants of Fund-Raising Success in the cross-section of Initial Coin Offerings
2021
This paper explores cross-sectionally the determinants of ICO success as measured by the amount of raised funding. Our study is the first that retrieves an intensive hand-collected data library covering the entire population of all 5,033 ICOs launched in the 2014 – 2019 period. Another important novel aspect is that we address the question whether psychological and financial sentiment cached in whitepapers have an impact on the success of ICOs. We employ natural language procession tools and various sentiment dictionaries to assess the sentiment in whitepapers and our results suggest that ICO investors are largely guided by their emotions when making investment decisions. Additionally, to g…
Effect of organic loading rate on the production of Polyhydroxyalkanoates from sewage sludge
2023
The aim of this work was to study the effect of organic loading rate on the production of Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) from sewage sludge. Synthesis of PHA using sewage sludge as platform was achieved in this work. Three pilot-scale selection-sequencing batch reactors (S-SBR) were used for obtaining a culture able to accumulate PHA following a strategy of aerobic dynamic feeding (ADF) at different volumetric organic-loading-rate (vOLR): 1.3, 1.8 and 0.8 g COD L-1 d-1 for S-SBR 1, S-SBR 2 and S-SBR 3, respectively. Decreasing the vOLR enhanced the general performance of the process as for organic matter removal (from 99.2% ± 0.3% in S-SBR-3 to 92 ± 2 in S-SBR-2) while the opposite trend was r…
Ambient Temperature, Social Perception and Social Behavior
2020
The literature suggests that human perception and behavior vary with physical temperature. We provide an experimental test of how different ambient temperature conditions impact social behavior and social perception: Subjects went through a series of tasks measuring various aspects of social behavior and perception under three temperature conditions (cold vs. optimal vs. warm). Despite well-established findings on temperature effects, our data suggest that physical temperature has no relevant influence on social behavior and social perception. We corroborate our finding of a null effect by the use of equivalence testing and provide a discussion in the light of recent failed replication atte…
Middle-late Pleistocene eastern Mediterranean nutricline depth and coccolith preservation linked to Monsoon activity and Atlantic meridional overturn…
2022
Altres ajuts: Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M; Universidade de Vigo's programme to attract excellent research talent (RR04092017) The eastern Mediterranean Sea lies under the influence of high- and low-latitude climatic systems. The northern part of the basin is affected by Atlantic depressions and continental and polar air masses that promote intermediate and deep-water formation. The southern part is influenced by subtropical conditions and monsoon activity. Monsoon intensification results in enhanced freshwater discharge from the Nile River and other (now dry) systems along the North African margin. This freshwater influx into the Mediterranean Sea reduces surface w…
Heterogenizing palladium tetraiodide catalyst for carbonylation reactions
2022
We report the first example of successful heterogenization of the classical PdI42- carbonylation catalyst, achieved in two simple steps from ionic liquid-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The newly developed materials (PdI4@MWCNT-imi-X, X = Br, I) present the PdI42- anion supported on an imidazolium network (imi) grown on MWCNTs and have been fully characterized. The activity of PdI4@MWCNT-imi-X has been successfully tested in a paradigmatic carbonylation reaction, the oxidative monoaminocarbonylation of 1-alkynes with amines to give high value added 2-ynamides (obtained in good yields, 50–84%, starting from various substrates). The heterogeneous catalyst could be easil…
How Return Affects the Decision to Surrender a Savings Insurance Policy: Detailed Observations on the Reverse Disposition Effect
2020
The disposition effect has been widely studied in academia, while the reverse disposition effect observed in mutual funds has gained relatively little attention. This study examines the reverse disposition effect in detail by using policy-level data from a Finnish life insurer with a considerable sample size. The results show that the Finnish savings policies with a positive return have a surrender rate that is over 30 percent lower than that of policies with a negative return. Tax incentives and expected future returns do not seem to cause this reverse disposition effect directly. Salient information strengthens the reverse disposition effect, and higher policyholder age and surrender fees…
Promoting self-employment: Does it create more employment and business activity?
2021
International audience; We assess the economic impact of reforms promoting self-employment in the three countries that have implemented such reforms since the early 2000s: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France. To that end, we use an unbalanced cross country-industry dataset of 4,226 observations, including 12 OECD countries and 20 market industries, over the 1995-2016 period. We first observe, using country-level data, that the share of self-employed workers in total employment is quite stable or declines over the period in all countries in our dataset, except in the three countries where large reforms promoting self-employment have been implemented, and only after these reforms. …
Assessing commodity price risks and terms of trade exposures in emerging and developing countries
2020
This paper provides novel evidence on commodity exposure (impacts of commodity price and terms of trade fluctuations) amongst 46 emerging and developing countries (EMDCs) in Africa, Asia and the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. We focus on the exposures of six macroeconomic variables to the commodity prices and terms of trade, based on the real business cycle (RBC) theory. Our empirical results indicate that, overall, about 10% of the macroeconomic variation amongst the EMDCs is due to commodity market-related exposures. The Asian and LAC economies are especially sensitive to changes in commodity prices. The changes in the prices of world trade have an imminent impact on non-commo…
Intellectual Property and Leverage: The Role of Patent Portfolios
2019
This paper analyses the importance of intellectual property in determining capital structure decisions. We argue that firms can use their patent stock as collateral and thereby relax possible debt financing restrictions. Using data from the European Patent Office and balance sheet data of European companies, we find that larger and more valuable patent stocks lead to higher debt-ratios - controlling for well-established capital structure determinants. We further assess variation across as well as within industries and show that effects are mainly driven by tech-oriented and research intensive firms. Drawing on a legislative change in EU- law, allows us to establish a causal relationship bet…