PhD Oral Exam - Hamidreza Adibi, Business Administration

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

The first essay (Chapter 2) examines whether managerial sentiment is associated with analyst forecast dispersion before shareholder litigation. Using 1,683 shareholder litigation events filed against U.S. public firms from 2002 to 2022, we find a nonlinear relation between managerial sentiment and dispersion. The relation is concentrated in moderate sentiment regions, where managerial sentiment is sufficiently informative to matter yet also sufficiently ambiguous to generate disagreement among analysts. Dispersion decreases as moderately positive sentiment becomes stronger, but it increases as moderately negative sentiment moves closer to neutral. This relationship is absent in timing-placebo tests and matched non-litigated firms. We further show that pre-filing analyst forecast dispersion has ex-ante predictive power for subsequent litigation risk, post-filing idiosyncratic volatility, and cumulative abnormal returns. Overall, the evidence suggests that analyst forecast dispersion captures meaningful disagreement in the pre-filing information environment rather than noise.

The second essay (Chapter 3) investigates whether lobbying and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are substitutes or complements within the political environment. Using U.S. firm-level data from 2016 to 2022, we study how the association between lobbying and CSR varies with political risk, sentiment (managers’ subjective perception of political risk), and political orientation. The results indicate that during periods of high political risk, firms are more likely to engage in both lobbying and CSR when their political sentiment is negative. This result supports a joint risk-mitigation approach that combines direct political influence with reputational buffering. Additionally, we show that during periods of high political risk, Republican-leaning firms exhibit patterns consistent with a complementary strategy between lobbying and CSR. In contrast, Democratic-leaning firms show patterns consistent with substitution between the two strategies. These findings highlight the importance of the political environment in shaping firms’ non-market strategy choices.

The third and final essay (Chapter 4) examines the impact of country-level economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the fundraising success of early-stage ventures through initial coin offerings (ICOs). We argue that the decentralized nature of the token offerings market and its limited regulatory oversight relative to traditional capital markets, along with the unique investor base and global reach of these ventures, make this emerging market an ideal setting for studying the effects of economic policy uncertainty on early-stage venture funding. Using a hand-collected sample of 444 ICOs issued in 30 countries between 2018 and 2022, along with a range of economy-wide and ICO-specific variables, we find a significant positive relationship between ICO fundraising amounts and EPU. These findings imply that investors are more willing to allocate funds to ICOs during periods of elevated EPU, when growth in the traditional finance sector tends to be substantially slower. Increased market volatility, a booming crypto market, and periods when the money supply (monetary base) is higher all reinforce this effect. Furthermore, the effect is stronger and significant only when uncertainty in the cryptocurrency market is low.