Master of Business Administration, The Ohio State University, 1967, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Business Administration, The Ohio State University, 1961, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Consumer Sciences

Housing wealth and human capital are two of the most important asset classes for most Americans. To better understand these topics, I examine populations of current and prior military service personnel as well as working adults using data from the 2018 National Financial Capability Study and 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. In the first chapter, I provide an overview of the aims of this dissertation, motivate my research, and summarize methodologies and key findings for each of the three independent studies. In the second chapter, I investigate rates of negative home equity contrasted between active-duty military households and civilian households. Little prior research has been conducted on the topic of housing wealth related to this population who experience multiple and impactful unique considerations. Results show, for a national data sample collected in 2018, that active-duty military households had 6.25 times higher rates of negative home equity as comparted to rates of negative home equity for civilian households. When interacting military status with three financial-behavior moderators that measure financial vulnerability, active-duty military households who exhibit these vulnerabilities have higher predicted probabilities of negative home equity as compared to civilian households. In the third chapter, I investigate rates of home ownership and levels of positive home equity across two age-based cohorts of military service personnel households. The cohorts reflect older Korea/Vietnam and younger post-Vietnam military personnel households. The comparison group are civilian households. Results show that, for a national data sample collected in 2022, the cohorts of military households do not differ from civilian households with regard to the homeownership rate. Financial stress is negatively related to home ownership. Results document that there is a negative association between Post-Vietnam era military households and higher levels of home equity. The (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cäzilia Loibl (Advisor); Sherman Hanna (Committee Member); Andrew Hanks (Committee Member); Robert Scharff (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Business Administration; Finance

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1958, Psychology

Committee: Robert M. Guion (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1958, Psychology

Committee: Robert M. Guion (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Business: Business Administration

Existing finance research has predominantly focused on the equity market and ignored the bond market. To bridge this gap, my dissertation largely focuses on the bond market, which is occupied by passive investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, and banks, and aims to shed light on the strategic roles played by passive investors. Traditionally in the literature, bond dealers and brokers are the main liquidity supplier in the bond market -- they satisfy other investors' demands for immediate execution of orders that trade in the opposite direction from most other investors. Such liquidity provision function nevertheless could be curtailed in bad times such as the great financial crisis or due to policy adjustments like the implementation of Dodd-Frank Act. Largely built on the intuition that insurers are a group of buy-and-hold investors with more stable operating cash flow than other institutional investors, I explore the role played by insurers, the larger institutional investors in the bond market, in the bond liquidity provision especially during bad times. These are issues addressed in the first two essays of my dissertation works. In the third essay, I study the effect of defined benefit pensions' funding constraints on corporates' earnings management incentives. In a large picture, this is well aligned with the "rainy day" argument -- the substantial reduction in the interest rates in the past three decades substantially inflate corporate pension liabilities, making the wealth constraint imposed by corporate pension obligations much more relevant. I provide more details of the three essays below. The first essay demonstrates that as a group, insurers serve the role of rainy day liquidity providers during bad times and for bonds under selling pressures. Within insurers, however, there are ample differences in insurer operations, regulatory conditions, and investment styles, and their connections with dealers. Thus the second essay explores what t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mehmet Saglam Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Tong Yu Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Olivier Parent Ph.D. (Committee Member); Yichen Qin (Committee Member) Subjects: Finance

Bachelor of Arts, Marietta College, 2020, Business and Economics

This research investigates the relationship between life insurance companies' premium revenue and income from their investments. The main goal of the study is to determine whether life insurance providers could utilize investment income to compensate for low premium revenue. A panel regression analysis is conducted on the financial data from eleven public life insurance providers for a period of over 28 years. This study finds that there is a negative correlation between the percentage of total revenue derived from premium revenue and the percentage of total revenue derived from net investment income and there is a positive correlation between the percentage of total revenue derived from premium revenue and the percentage of total revenue derived from equity investment income. The results of this study suggest that life insurance companies can use the income from their investments to supplement income generated from premiums paid by their consumers. The role of investment income by life insurance companies introduces risks to the companies that they may become reliant on that investment income to compensate for underwriting losses. If this reliance becomes too taxing it could contribute to insolvency risk.

Committee: Duong Le (Committee Chair); John Fazio (Committee Member); Michael Morgan (Committee Member) Subjects: Finance

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Consumer Sciences

This dissertation consists of three related research studies on life insurance holdings and financial capability. The first research study investigates the association of risk aversion in single-parent households with at least one child under age 18 with life insurance ownership. Analyzing the 1992 to 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances datasets, it reveals that the probability of ownership of term life insurance declines as risk aversion increases, while the probability of owning cash-value life insurance increases as risk aversion increases. Smokers, an alternative measure of risk tolerance, are less likely to have term life insurance but more likely to have cash-value life insurance than comparable non-smokers. The second research study examines the adequacy to which households protect against financial risk in the event of the death of the income earners. Findings show which household characteristics are associated with being adequate in financial protection with newly improved measurements. Analyzing the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, this study also investigates the role financial knowledge for the adequacy of financial protection using an innovative instrumental variable approach for financial knowledge. Findings suggests that two distinct constructs of financial knowledge, objective and subjective financial knowledge, are significant determinants of the adequacy of financial protection. The results shed light on the importance of financial knowledge for the protection against financial shocks. Focusing on lower-income adults who are nearing retirement, the third research study explores the relationship between financial-planning behaviors (paying bills on time, emergency savings, and retirement planning) and two key components of financial capability, financial education and financial inclusion. Using data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study, the results point to the important role of financial inclusion for financial-planning behavio (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Loibl Cäzilia (Advisor); Hanna Sherman (Committee Member); Scharff Robert (Committee Member); Montalto Catherine (Committee Member); Snyder Anastasia (Committee Member) Subjects: Home Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1978, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Home Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Human Ecology: Family Resource Management

Normative economic theory posits that an individual or household should choose an option that maximizes expected utility. With regards to life insurance, separate decision must be made to determine if life insurance should be purchased, and if so, how much to purchase. This dissertation provides insights into household life insurance decisions and how these decisions relate to household financial vulnerability. The main objectives are: (1) construct a more comprehensive financial vulnerability measurement, (2) construct a more comprehensive human wealth measurement, and (3) analyze the contributing factors related to life insurance ownership and amount. The sample was selected in an effort to best test a life insurance model including financial vulnerability in a family context. The sample consists of 2093 mixed-sex coupled households, between the ages of 30 and 64, with all households having total earnings that place them above the federal poverty guidelines. The multivariate analyses include both a Cragg model, consisting of a Probit procedure and a truncated regression, and a Tobit model. The likelihood ratio test indicated that the Cragg model was the appropriate model for determining total, term, and whole life insurance ownership and extent while the Tobit was the appropriate model for determining the proportion of insurable human wealth insured. While most households in the sample, 78%, own life insurance, the median proportion of their insurable human wealth insured with life insurance is only 28%, suggesting an underinsurance problem. The financial vulnerability index is similar to that of a standard deviation calculation that measures the change in household consumption and standard of living if either spouse/partner were to die. Financial vulnerability did not have significant effects on the probability of term or whole life insurance ownership; however, contingent on life insurance ownership, there was a positive relationship between financial vu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sherman Hanna (Advisor) Subjects: Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Sociology

Most approaches adopted to explain the growth of the post-industrial complex focus on “modernization” through manufacture and industrialization. Unlike the industrial revolution, however, the post-industrial age is characterized by new divisions of labor emphasizing knowledge, information dissemination, sharing, coordination and control (i.e., advanced services). Because existing theories were not developed to explain post-industrialism, they may be misleading or inapplicable. As such, the purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to ecologically contextualize the post-industrial revolution and, (2) to create an empirical and practical model useful in explaining the post-industrial revolution using global life insurance penetration as a proxy. To this end four issues are addressed. First, I assess current theory with an eye toward synthesis in order to provide a holistic explanatory context for post-industrial evolution. Second, I demonstrate how life insurance penetration acts as a proxy for post-industrial growth. Third, I outline key hypothetical drivers of post-industrial change using the life insurance industry as a springboard. Finally, I analyze a pooled, cross-sectional time series of 49 countries over ten years (1991 to 2000) giving empirical support to these hypothetical drivers of post-industrial participation. Based upon theoretical synthesis, my conjunctual ecological model posits a causal process for post-industrial growth along four dimensions: geographic/environmental, demographic, socio-organizational/economic, and cyclical/temporal. Controlling for economic development, all dimensions yield fairly robust results. Geographically, national predisposition to shipping shows a strong net positive effect; also, demographic indicators such as population dependency, death rate and female labor force participation demonstrate broad net influences on insurance penetration. Socio-organizational variables such as savings and household consumption have little predi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Edward Crenshaw (Advisor) Subjects: