The first chapter explores the determinants of people's decisions to take 401(k) loans. We model factors that rationally would induce people to borrow from their pension plans, and we explain why people do not often use 401(k) loans to replace their more expensive credit card debt. Next we test...

Various business problems are of interest to both data mining and marketing academic communities, such as market segmentation, direct marketing, targeted marketing, personalization/customization, cross selling and discovering customer lifetime value. Yet, these two disciplines have very...

Building on A Behavioral Theory of the Firm and on A Network Theory of Social Capital, this dissertation develops a theory that serves as the basis to understand what guides firm search, particularly, why ex ante alternative assessment drives exploration by focusing the attention of the firm on...

In this dissertation, structural models that utilize parametric and nonparametric approaches are developed that are used to measure competition and cost efficiency in the US banking industry (1990--96). Competition in loan and deposit markets is studied using the method of conjectural variations...

Although existing laboratory research shows that software is often used inefficiently, relatively little is known about (a) how efficiently software is used in a real work environment and (b) the factors that influence the efficiency of individual users. The present research consists of an...

Interactions between the banking sector and an open capital account are investigated as rationalizations for the empirical regularities that characterize disinflation programs anchored by fixing the exchange rate. Financial intermediation and bank money creation are formalized within a dynamic...

This thesis was an attempt at resolving the controversy regarding the incidence of the corporation income tax (CIT) in the United States. Three alternative hypotheses reflecting opposing points of view were constructed. The first hypothesis was the neoclassical hypothesis, which states that when...

This dissertation is aiming to find out the impact of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act on insurance companies' survival. The events of interest are bankruptcy and acquisition, which are correlated and censor each other. A statistical survival analysis method is developed first and then applied to the...

In the first chapter, we examine the relation between efficiency and competition in a dynamic framework. For this purpose, we measure efficiencies and conduct of the U.S. airlines in two city-pairs. We model the conduct parameter as an unobservable state variable which is an AR(1) process and...

This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of managerial choice of discretionary accounting methods and the use of the reporting process in income smoothing. After analyzing concepts of smoothing behavior, including managerial motivations to engage in smoothing, security market reactions to...