We studied the perception of wealth as a function of varying levels of assets and debt. We found that with total wealth held constant, people with positive net worth feel and are seen as wealthier when they have lower debt (despite having fewer assets). In contrast, people with equal but negative net worth feel and are considered wealthier when they have greater assets (despite having larger de...

The majority of the poor lack access to bank accounts and have to use costly informal savings mechanisms. Using a field experiment, I randomly gave access to simple bank accounts with no fees at local bank branches to a large sample of female household heads in Nepal. Results show that there is untapped demand for savings accounts and that the poor do save. Access to the savings accounts increa...

This paper examines the impact of floods on firms’ capital accumulation, employment growth and productivity by using a difference-indifference approach and considering firms’ asset structure. We find evidence that after a flooding companies in flooded regions show on average higher growth of total assets and employment than firms in areas not affected by flooding. The positive effect prevails f...

We find the minimum probability of lifetime ruin of an investor who can invest in a market with a risky and a riskless asset and who can purchase a reversible life annuity. The surrender charge of a life annuity is a proportion of its value. Ruin occurs when the total of the value of the risky and riskless assets and the surrender value of the life annuity reaches zero. We find the optimal inve...

The banks’ response to their changes in leverage ratios is examined and evaluated in this paper. This reaction can be interpreted as if the coefficient of total debts to equity (lev1) and total assets to equity (lev2) are positive as anticipated in the banking network of Iran. The paper uses data from 31 Iranian banks’ annual databases during the course of 2006-13 in order to estimate an empiri...

In this paper the principal-agent models between the investor and the manager of the open-ended fund are made from the new view about the liquidity risk management, and the optimal contracts and optimal policies are obtained in closed form by solving these modes. By the analysis of the optimal contract, we find that the fixed compensation of manager is the positive relationship with redemption ...

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of capital structure decisions on firms’ profitability in manufacturing sector in Turkey. The data used in this research corresponds to the financial statements of manufacturing companies collected between 2005 and 2011. Regression analysis was employed by using financial ratios obtained from financial statements of firms within the scope of a...

This study compares the predictive ability of: (1) ratings, rating changes and total assets; (2) financial ratios; and (3) financial ratios combined with ratings and rating changes on a sample of forty-eight insolvent life insurers over the period 1990 to 1992. Based on the expected cost of misclassification, ratings, rating changes and total assets have comparable predictive ability to financi...