This study was undertaken to determine which strategies would allow the Cal Poly Organic Farm to operate as a profitable business without compromising educational and agricultural objectives. Three strategies were analyzed to determine the most profitable approach. The first strategy, expanding...

This study tests the assertion that membership growth in credit unions is constrained by their unique structural features, such as their non-profit mission and member-based ownership. Although these features enhance inclusiveness, existing theory suggest that they work against efficiency when...

The 2007-09 credit crunch has not only created problems for the UK’s public finances in meeting the costs of bailing out commercial banks and dealing with recession but also for providing better public services. This paper analyses the causes of the credit crunch, government policies to...

Over the last decade, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has become preferred government option for the provision of different services to the public. In PFI procurement, private companies take on the obligation to build and manage a facility but provide only a small fraction of the project?s...

This paper examines time-series patterns of external financing decisions and shows that publicly traded U.S, firms fund a much larger proportion of their financing deficit with external equity when the cost of equity capital is low. The historical values of the cost of equity capital have...

We study the role of corporate governance in abnormal returns around announcements of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) by publicly traded U. S. firms from 2001 - 2004. We find that investors react more positively for firms in which different people hold the CEO and board chairman positions. We...

We examine whether firms' earnings exhibit higher degrees of conservatism after restating their financial statements. Conservatism is defined as more timely recognition of gains than losses in earnings (Basu, 1997). Using a sample of restatements derived from the Government Accountability Office...

We examine Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that went public between 1986 and 2004. Consistent with previous studies, we find that REIT IPOs are associated with lower levels of underpricing relative to traditional issues. We also find that REITs are...

The U. S. is facing an unprecedented environment of increasing unemployment, declining income, disappearing middleclass, and mounting trade deficit (about $731 billion in 2007). The government is providing stimulus funds to a selected number of organizations to help solve these problems.However,...

The purpose of this thesis is to determine US firms’ motivations for foreign direct investment and to explore to what extent US firms continue to invest into China and India. I first correlate the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors in the United States with those of China and India....