Does asymmetric information affect firm's financing decisions?

PurposeThe authors examine the impact of asymmetric information on firm's financing decisions, the feedback effect of changes in capital structure on the level of asymmetric information, and the speed of adjustments in capital structure on its target leverage.Design/methodology/approachThe authors extract the data on 280 non-financial firms listed in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from the DataStream. The authors implement the generalized method of moments (GMM), complemented by the fixed effect model (FEM) to estimate the model coefficients.FindingsThe authors find that asymmetric information significantly affects the financing decisions; and that on average, firms adjust 26% of the total debt toward their target capital structure. The negative effect from the difference between the observed and target changes in leverage on asymmetric information confirms that capital structure changes act as a signal for future profitability and helps the management to lower its level of asymmetric information.Originality/valueThe findings offer fresh insight into the effect of asymmetric information on financing decisions, as well as the speed of adjustment of capital structure toward its target leverage, in the context of the firms working in emerging markets like Pakistan. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of asymmetric information on financing decisions that incorporate firm's age, size and the global financial crises 2007–2008. The authors construct an asymmetric information index using both accounting and finance measures of asymmetry.

$G$-deviations of polygons and their applications in Electric Power Engineering

For any metric space $X$ endowed with the action of a group $G$, and two $n$-gons $\vec x=(x_1,\dots,x_n)\in X^n$ and $\vec y=(y_1,\dots,y_n)\in X^n$ in $X$, we introduce the $G$-deviation $d(G\vec x,\vec y\,)$ of $\vec x$ from $\vec y$ as the distance in $X^n$ from $\vec y$ to the $G$-orbit $G\vec x$ of $\vec x$ in the $n$-th power $X^n$ of $X$. For some groups $G$ of affine transformations of the complex plane, we deduce simple-to-apply formulas for calculating the $G$-deviation between $n$-gons on the complex plane. We apply these formulas for defining new measures of asymmetry of triangles. These new measures can be applied in Electric Power Engineering for evaluating the quality of 3-phase electric power. One of such measures, namely the affine deviation, is espressible via the unbalance degree, which is a standard characteristic of quality of three-phase electric power.

Reliability of bilateral and shear components in a two-legged counter-movement jump

Strength asymmetry can be detrimental to athlete performance and may lead to injury. The countermovement jump (CMJ) can be used to measure strength asymmetry via shear force production. The reliability of parameters and effects of asymmetry and shear force production on vertical CMJ performance were evaluated in a study with 15 university-level sprint and high jump athletes ( m = 11, f = 4). The athletes performed three CMJs on two occasions, separated by 1 week. Tri-axial ground reaction force (GRF) was recorded using two force platforms embedded within a bespoke weight training area. Key performance metrics were calculated in real-time describing total CMJ performance, asymmetry and shear force production. Changes in the means and coefficients of variation (CV) were used to express reliability. Twenty-six parameters from the Total analysis and 21 Asymmetry analysis parameters showed a CV lower than 10%. Temporal and kinetic variables describing Asymmetry analysis highlight a lower CV compared with equivalent parameters derived from Total analysis. Shear parameters show high levels of CV compared with Total analysis and Asymmetry analysis. The measures of asymmetry calculated using methods described in this work were shown to be reliable for monitoring CMJ performance. No significant negative relationships were found between measures of asymmetry or shear force and traditional performance metrics in the CMJ (e.g. jump height, specific peak power and peak force). Further work is required to identify the potential of reducing asymmetry on CMJ performance.

Systematically asymmetric: a comparison of H i profile asymmetries in real and simulated galaxies

ABSTRACT We examine different measures of asymmetry for galaxy H i velocity profiles. We introduce the channel-by-channel asymmetry and the velocity-of-equality statistics to quantify profile asymmetries. Using a sample of simulated galaxies, we examine how these and the standard lopsidedness morphometric statistic depend on a variety of observational effects, including the viewing angle and inclination. We find that our newly introduced channel-by-channel asymmetry is less sensitive to the effects of viewing angle and inclination than other morphometrics. Applying our statistics to the WHISP (Westerbork H i survey of Irregular and SPiral galaxies) H i galaxy sample, we also find that the channel-by-channel asymmetry is a better indicator of visually classified asymmetric profiles. In addition, we find that the lopsidedness–velocity of equality space can be used to identify profiles with deep central dips without visual inspection.

H i asymmetries in LVHIS, VIVA, and HALOGAS galaxies

ABSTRACT We present an analysis of morphological, kinematic, and spectral asymmetries in observations of atomic neutral hydrogen (H i) gas from the Local Volume H i Survey (LVHIS), the VLA Imaging of Virgo in Atomic Gas (VIVA) survey, and the Hydrogen Accretion in Local Galaxies Survey. With the aim of investigating the impact of the local environment density and stellar mass on the measured H i asymmetries in future large H i surveys, we provide recommendations for the most meaningful measures of asymmetry for use in future analysis. After controlling for stellar mass, we find signs of statistically significant trends of increasing asymmetries with local density. The most significant trend we measure is for the normalized flipped spectrum residual (Aspec), with mean LVHIS and VIVA values of 0.204 ± 0.011 and 0.615 ± 0.068 at average weighted 10th nearest-neighbour galaxy number densities of log (ρ10/Mpc−3) = −1.64 and 0.88, respectively. Looking ahead to the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind survey on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, we estimate that the number of detections will be sufficient to provide coverage over 5 orders of magnitude in both local density and stellar mass increasing the dynamic range and accuracy with which we can probe the effect of these properties on the asymmetry in the distribution of atomic gas in galaxies.