Introduction to research & development decision analysis
Essay - 5 pages - Finance
A firm optimizes its market value when it successfully implements strategies that generate positive discounted cash flows applied against initial investments with net present value (NPV) greater than zero. One purely economic analysis, which serves as a guidepost to this work, applies a...
Britain and the euro: not for yesterday, not for today, not for ever...?
Essay - 14 pages - Finance
The EMS's Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) has long been a source of political controversy, playing for instance a relevant part in the final drama of Margaret Thatcher's resignation as a serving Prime Minister. Britain entered the ERM in 1990 to exit from it in 1992 and afterward, the new...
Textbooks say that banks transform risks: What are the risks involved? and how are they transformed?
Essay - 4 pages - Finance
Financial crisis may be very damaging for the whole society, as bank failures can either lead to runs or to panic. Bank runs occurs when problems at a bank “undermine depositors' confidence.” The depositors' reaction is to rush to withdraw their money since they know that the bank's...
Accounting report to the board of direction
Essay - 3 pages - Finance
Today our company is using a cost-plus pricing approach to price its product. In fact this method used to price our products can be inadequate in certain cases for our firm. In the usual course this method is used in a monopoly situation. Today, we have to try to notify if our company has a...
Operational auditing
Essay - 9 pages - Finance
According to the Institute of Internal Auditors, Internal Auditing could be defined as "an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organisation's operations. It helps an organisation accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic,...
Economic activity, investments and technological policy
Essay - 7 pages - Finance
The concept of competitiveness of the national economies and the viability of the national productive systems in the context of globalization focuses on the role of innovative competitive advantages, which are related to the technological know-how. The competitive advantages of low production...
A look at corporate taxation
Essay - 4 pages - Finance
As any business withdraws and employs reduction of all or parts of its assets to cash or cash equivalents to its shareholders, the last step that is usually undertaken is the complete liquidation of the corporation and this denotes the end of the corporation's life as well as the cessation of...
Money advice
Essay - 6 pages - Finance
The trend of people being subjected to financial difficulty is increasing. The easy access to credit may provide convenience but it can also lead to overspending and consequently, overindebtedness. Some life-changing events such as loss of job and divorce can substantially add to debts. Being...
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) theories: An overview of the main FDI theories
Essay - 6 pages - Finance
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) acquired an important role in the international economy after the Second World War. The increase of the volume of foreign direct investment was so sharp that economists considered FDI as a new stage of Capitalism after the classic Marxist theories of Imperialism....
Risk management and the use of derivatives
Essay - 7 pages - Finance
This paper investigates the use of derivatives in Risk Management. Deriving the value from an underlying asset or an index representing assets, derivatives bear the ability to accelerate gains or losses for a small initial outlay thus assisting corporations to manage risk and return...
Interdependence of norms in budgeting
Essay - 7 pages - Finance
Key (1940) contended that there was a lack of "attention from the basic budgeting problem (on the expenditure side), namely: On what basis shall it be decided to allocate x dollars to activity A instead of Activity B?" (1137, emphasis in original) The literature of the era was concerned...
Capital budgeting methods
Essay - 7 pages - Finance
Capital budgeting is concerned with the process of producing, evaluating, selecting and controlling capital expenditures. In this context, capital budgeting decisions are critical. Winning projects typically produce positive cash flows for a long period of time, while failing projects do not...
Top-down or bottom-up valuation process?
Essay - 6 pages - Finance
Investors typically select investments that provide a rate of return, which compensates them for their time, the expected rate of inflation and the risk involved. In this context, the value of an investment is estimated based on the required rate of return, which is calculated using either the...
Efficient capital markets and the importance of behavioral finance
Essay - 7 pages - Finance
Efficient capital markets allow to consumers and companies to invest savings, borrow, and manage risk in the most effective way. Capital markets bring together companies, that seek to raise capital to invest in future performance and investors, who seek for a profitable return on their...
Critical discussion on the definition of assets and liabilities contained in the IASC Framework
Essay - 6 pages - Finance
Although it may come as a surprise to many non- accountants, the accounting profession internationally has encountered a great deal of problems in arriving at robust definitions for the elements of financial statements. Defining assets, liabilities, and gains and losses (income and expenditure)...
An investigation in to the problems with corporate pension funds
Essay - 12 pages - Finance
Beginning with the New Deal, efforts to secure the social and economic prosperity of employees after retirement have been developed. This process has lead to the evolution of the current system of corporate pension funds. Although millions of American workers invest in these funds each year, few...
An Investigation Into the State of Microfinance in Benin (2005)
Essay - 16 pages - Finance
Research on the economic and social development of countries in Africa demonstrates that there are a host of issues that must be addressed in the context of improving daily economic conditions for individual citizens. While some of these issues have been addressed by government agencies and...
Transatlantic trade (Amos Beyan)
Essay - 2 pages - Finance
The author defines racism to be “the ideology of exclusion or separation of people because of the color of their skin.” This separation was very prominent during the transatlantic trade because so many countries, including those of Africa, were involved in racism, by engaging in slave...
Harpoon Brewery
Essay - 2 pages - Finance
The brewing process begins with four ingredients: water, barley, hops and yeast. Harpoon does not put any preservatives or additives in their beer. Each step in the process can process 3,800 gallons at a time. There is one machine for each step except fermentation, which has 22 uni-tanks. A...
The Inner-Workings of Biogen Idec Inc.
Essay - 2 pages - Finance
As noted earlier in this report, Biogen Idec Inc. is an amalgamation of strengths. It has been the merger between IDEC Pharmaceuticals and Biogen. These two pharmaceutical giants have been as one corporation only as of November of 2003; therefore, there have been a very small number of...
Tax Reform
Essay - 2 pages - Finance
Tax reform and the US budget go hand in hand. While many people seek a tax reform, they must understand that the most significant factor in determining the types and amounts of taxes that are to be paid is the US budget. Typically, it would be expected that if a budget is in the red, taxation...
Corporate Corruption: Culture of Enron
Essay - 4 pages - Finance
Shareholder value was being diluted. It was worse than just being dishonest: stock options provided managers with strong incentives to get the value of their stocks up quickly - what mattered was not long-term strength but short-term appearances. Corporate officers responded to the incentives and...
Why I Think Markets are Efficient
Essay - 2 pages - Finance
Market efficiency, discovered by Eugene Fama, is the theory that at any given time, the prices of the market fully reflect all available information on a particular stock or and/or the market. Therefore no individual investor has any advantage over any other as all information is shared by...
Efficiency Overpowers Efforts to Chase Losses
Essay - 2 pages - Finance
The aim of this paper is to discuss Dr. Ryan Garvey's studies “Do Losses Linger? Evidence from proprietary stock trading,” while examining how this works inline with the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Through the research provided by Dr Garvey, it is expressed that professional traders...
Mortgages For First-Time Home Buyers: The Basics
Essay - 4 pages - Finance
Choosing a new home can be an overwhelming task, but even more daunting is choosing a mortgage lender to help you finance your new home. In your search for a home loan, it is important to know the different types of lenders as well as the different methods of shopping for a loan so that you may...
Retail Industry Analysis
Essay - 3 pages - Finance
The retail industry is flooded with products and services, all vying for market share and revenue. In order to succeed, the different firms must carefully understand and analyze the market they are in. They must ask questions about their rivals and the structure of the industry, as well as make...
The (Mis)Behavior of Markets: A Summary
Essay - 3 pages - Finance
Do markets really follow a random walk as modern financial theory suggests? Are we likely to experience a market crash as deadly as the likes of the Great Depression? What is the nature of volatility and how should it impact the way we model financial markets? Although definitive answers to these...
The effects of stock options on markets
Essay - 4 pages - Finance
Traditionally, stock option plans have been used as a way for companies to reward top management and "key" employees and link their interests with those of the company and other shareholders. More and more companies, however, now consider all of their employees as "key." As a result, there has...
Initial Public Offerings: an Outlook through Game Theory
Essay - 16 pages - Finance
Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) have a very special place in contemporary economics and finance. They represent the entrance on a deep and liquid market with access to almost unlimited reserves of capital from all over the world. But IPOs appear also as a short-term fund-raising tool, especially...
Microfinance: the Challenge of Accessing Global Capital Markets
Essay - 9 pages - Finance
The main theme of this project is the facilitation and development of microfinance, which is the “provision of loans, savings, insurance, payments, and other basic financial services to low-income populations” . The project is dedicated to identifying and evaluating existing options for...
