Resume

• 2005

  PhD

  Finance

• 2003

  MBA

  Finance

  Financial Management

  Data Analysis and Interpretation

  Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management

  Financial Markets and Institutions

  Financial Investments

  International Finance

  Corporate Finance

  Money and Banking

  International Financial Management

  Investments

  Financial Markets

  Institutions and Money

  Financial Management

  Financial Derivatives

• 1999

  BSBA

  Accounting

  Finance & Economics

• Data Analysis

  PowerPoint

  Research

  Economics

  Market Research

  Portfolio Management

  Microsoft Excel

  SPSS

  Project Management

  Financial Modeling

  Microsoft Office

  Public Speaking

  Higher Education

  Strategic Planning

  Statistics

  Finance

  Quantitative Analytics

  Financial Analysis

  Econometrics

  Corporate Finance

  Did Covenants Distort Risk Signals from Bank Subordinated Debt Yields before the Financial Crisis?

  Kevin Lee

  Restrictive covenants on bank debt require a bank to take or refrain from specific actions that affect the riskiness of that debt. Although covenants all but disappeared in the 1990s

  they reemerged after 2004 with an increase in bank risk leading up to the financial crisis. Subordinated debt yields potentially enable better risk monitoring by supervisors

  but covenants can shift risk from bondholders to stockholders without reducing overall bank risk. This can distort the risk signal used by market participants to discipline excessive risk taking. Because covenants are endogenous and increase during periods of bank stress

  the yield signal is dampened the most precisely when regulators most need accurate risk monitoring.

  Did Covenants Distort Risk Signals from Bank Subordinated Debt Yields before the Financial Crisis?

  Jeffrey Donaldson

  Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) offer the ability to invest globally along with the ability to hedge or not hedge the currency risk. When an investor living in the United States buys an ETF representing Europe

  for example

  the investor is seeking the returns of the underlying businesses and stocks in that region. However

  there is an issue which impacts the realized returns when translating the currency from euros to dollars. If the US dollar strengthens

  the euro will not purchase as many dollars as before and some of the return will be lost. Conversely

  a weakening US dollar will result in not only obtaining the returns from the companies themselves but additional gains in currency translation. This exercise demonstrates the varying impacts of currency movements on international investments and examines the effect on both the hedged and unhedged global ETFs.

  Global ETF Portfolios: The Decision to Hedge

  Christi Wann

  Nicole Velasquez

  Kevin Lee

  We survey 84 finance and accounting majors to determine the behavioral factors that males and females exhibit when making investment decisions. The survey results are linked to student performance in the Stock-Trak Global Portfolio Trading Simulation. We find that males and females exhibit different behavioral biases and these behavioral biases can ultimately affect investment performance. We also find evidence to support previous research showing that males are more risk tolerant than females. However

  our findings indicate that this behavior may be due to a difference in the perception of the actual risk being taken rather than an inherent desire to engage in more risky behavior.

  The Effects of Investor Bias and Gender on Portfolio Performance and Risk

  Kristine Hilliard

  The objective of this paper is to provide guidance that will assist in the development of an applied learning program in social entrepreneurship for undergraduate students. Providing students an opportunity to apply the business skills and knowledge they have acquired from their business education is a key element of the program. A general overview of recommendations on how to establish

  implement and sustain a student-led microfinance program is provided. Within these boundaries

  the effectiveness of a program offering assistance beyond a simple financial investment is analyzed. This paper serves as a valuable guide to universities that may consider developing a student-led microfinance program and discusses the overall positive impact to the university

  students

  and surrounding community. Properly implemented

  such a program can provide a unique

  highly visible

  and innovative addition to a university’s applied learning offerings.

  Applied Learning Through Student-Led Microfinance Programs

  Hussein Dewji

  This paper examines the various internal and external components of corporate governance

  offers recommendations based on existing research and suggests areas for future research. The internal factors of corporate governance that are reviewed in this paper include the composition of the board of directors

  the structure of managerial compensation

  the concentration of share ownership

  and the level of firm debt. These factors are typically under a firm’s control and can be adjusted to match an organization’s firm-specific needs for governance. The external factors we consider include the market for corporate control

  the managerial labor market

  and the legal implications. Normally out of a firm’s direct control

  these factors provide an additional form of governance for shareholders. Together

  internal and external factors work to resolve agency conflict between management and shareholders; however

  they need to be carefully evaluated when implementing an optimal and unique governance structure for each particular firm. This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining the issue of corporate governance

  from the perspective of multiple business disciplines and discussing the implications of the results for practitioners.

  Assessing the Components of Effective Corporate Governance

  Kevin Lee

  Ru-Shiun Liou

  Emerging market multinational companies (EMNCs) utilize cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&As) to acquire strategic assets that compensate for their resource deficiencies. Therefore

  developed markets have become important destinations for EMNCs. Institutional distance constitutes a major source of competitive disadvantage for foreign firms competing with indigenous firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ownership pattern of cross-border M&As in the USA

  and determine if EMNCs respond to institutional distance differently than advanced-market multinational companies (AMNCs). This paper finds that both AMNCs and EMNCs take smaller ownership positions when there is greater cognitive and normative distance. The negative association is stronger for AMNCs than for EMNCs. Further

  the larger the regulative distance in the positive direction

  meaning a higher level of development in the host market than in the home market

  the more AMNCs and EMNCs are led to opt for a higher ownership position

  with EMNCs being less influenced by regulative distance.

  Institutional Impacts on Ownership Decisions by Emerging and Advanced Market MNCs

  Jeffrey Jones

  Timothy J. Yeager

  Charter value is important in the banking industry because of its ability to reduce the moral hazard incentives that result from government-provided deposit insurance. Previous research suggests that geographic deregulation in the 1970s and 1980s increased competition and eroded charter values. Yet

  a common proxy for charter value

  Tobin’s Q

  increased significantly in the 1990s and beyond even as bank deregulation continued. We show that Tobin’s Q is a poor cardinal measure of charter value though it still has merit as an ordinal measure. Our findings suggest that charter value has been declining through time

  contributing to the increase in risk-taking that led to the subprime financial crisis.

  Charter Value

  Tobin's Q and Risk during the Subprime Financial Crisis

  Tim Yeager

  Kevin Lee

  This paper examines the role of opacity in the lack of market discipline in the subordinated debt market of banks leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. We investigate reasons why market monitoring and discipline appear to wane after 2001 until the financial crisis of 2008. Our results show that subordinated debt holders were caught off guard by the suddenness and magnitude of the financial crisis and that bank opacity created a vulnerable environment in the banking industry that contributed to this collapse.

  The Effect of Opacity on Market Discipline during the lead up to the Financial Crisis

  Kevin Lee

  Chris Brune

  Researchers have shown that capital constrained firms make better acquisition decisions. However

  the literature on bank mergers and acquisitions is silent on this issue. We investigate whether banks constrained by capital requirements make better acquisition decisions than non-constrained banks. We also examine the characteristics of acquisitions to identify the determinants of positive post-acquisition performance. While there are few capital constrained banks that make acquisitions

  those that do demonstrate better post-acquisition performance than their nonconstrained counterparts. On average

  capital constrained banks pay a lower premium\nfor their target and favor cash over equity financing. We also find that capital constrained banks improve their capital ratios in the years after the acquisition. We employ two-way clustered error regressions using alternative definitions of capital constraint. We also provide a matched pair analysis to confirm that our results are robust.

  The Effects of Bank Capital Constraints on Post-Acquisition Performance

  Levon Goukasian

  During the 2008 financial crisis

  equipment lease and loan-backed securities performed better than almost any other asset-backed securities. Our study attributes their success to the nonexistent prepayment risk

  relatively short durations

  low delinquency rates

  and low net losses and charge-offs.

  The Performance of Equipment Lease-Backed Securities During the Financial Crisis

  Victor Philaire

  This paper uses the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to perform a textual analysis of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Minutes. The main objective of this research is to examine the impact of various economic factors on the amount and type of language used by the Federal Reserve. We compare the results over three different Fed chairs (Greenspan

  Bernanke and Yellen) from 1993 to 2017. Our findings suggest that each of the Federal Reserve Chairs portray the state of the economy in an empirically distinctive manner.

  The Minutes of the FOMC: How Economic Factors Influence the Language of the Federal Reserve Chairs

  Tim Yeager

  Eric Olson

  Bank supervisors utilize early warning signals to predict which banks are likely to become distressed. Previous research has found that market discipline signals do not significantly improve out-of-sample forecasts relative to accounting-based signals. Most of that evidence

  however

  comes from periods in the1990s when the U.S. economy and banking system were healthy

  potentially neutralizing an advantage of market signals to incorporate new information quickly. For the period between the fourth quarters of 2006 and 2012

  we assess the accuracy of two market signals – expected default frequency (EDF) and subordinated note and debenture (SND) yield spreads – relative to accounting-based signals in forecasting which publicly traded BHCs would become distressed. In 2008

  EDF signals were relatively more accurate

  but they did not lead to economically significant reductions in missed distress events relative to other signals. Supervisors would have been better off devoting slack resources to monitor BHCs with high commercial real estate concentrations. As the crisis subsided

  a failure probability model developed from bank failures in the 1980s and early 1990s was consistently the most accurate signal. For the two dozen BHCs with actively traded SNDs

  yield spreads over Treasuries were extremely poor predictors of distress because the spreads were distorted by too-big-to-fail subsidies. The Tier 1 leverage ratio was the most accurate distress signal for these large BHCs. In sum

  the evidence to justify systematic reliance on market signals by supervisory agencies to forecast bank distress remains weak.

  The Relative Contributions of Equity and Subordinated Debt Signals as Predictors of Bank Distress during the Financial Crisis

  Mark Wohar

  Eric Olson

  The LIBOR–OIS spread is a closely monitored indicator of the financial health of the economy. Previous research has used this spread to identify and anticipate abrupt changes in financial markets. Taylor and Williams (2009) refer to the drastic increase in the US LIBOR–OIS spread on August 7th

  2007 as a “Black Swan” in the money market. In this paper

  rather than rely on visual\nobservations of “Black Swans” we estimate them using Bai and Perron’s (1998) procedure. We estimate structural breaks

  Granger causality tests

  and innovation accounting in international\nLIBOR–OIS spreads and a CDS index to better understand their dynamics during the recent crisis. Our results reveal that “Black Swans” appeared in smaller economies prior to that in large ones\nduring the financial crisis. In addition

  we find that only shocks to the US LIBOR–OIS spread has any statistically significant effects after 30 days.

  Black Swans before the Black Swan: Evidence from International LIBOR-OIS Spreads

  Scott

  Miller

  Des Moines Area Community College

  Pepperdine University

  University of Arkansas

  UCLA

  Principal Financial Group

  Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center

  iMentor Global

  University of Tampa

  Tampa

  Florida

  Associate Professor of Finance

  University of Tampa

  Malibu

  CA

  John and Francis Duggan Professor of Finance (Tenured)

  Pepperdine University

  Malibu

  CA

  Assistant Professor of Finance

  Pepperdine University

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  Board Of Directors

  Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center

  University of Arkansas

  iMentor Global

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  Advisory Board

  Visiting Professor of Economics

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  UCLA

  Des Moines Area Community College

  Financial Accountant

  Principal Financial Group

  External Research Grant

  Equipment Leasing and Finance Foundation

  Seaver Fellow

  Seaver College

  Semifinalist Best Paper Award

  Financial Management Association

  Howard A. White Award for Excellence in Teaching

  Pepperdine University

  Excellence in Teaching Award

  Sam M. Walton College of Business

  Outstanding Research Award

  The Institute for Business and Finance Research

  Doctoral Academy Fellowship

  University of Arkansas

  Best Paper Award

  Academy of Economics and Finance

  Best in Session Award

  Global Conference on Business and Finance

  Elva and Henry Respess Fellow

  Pepperdine University

  Dean's Research Grant

  Seaver College