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ABSTRACTThis research investigates various firm motives for practicing corporate social responsibility (CSR). More precisely, it examines whether a firm's primary motive for undertaking CSR is related to the type of actions performed. Such exploratory research is overdue following more than 40 years of scholarly contention on the financial rewards of doing (and looking) good. By uncovering and measuring specific aspects of CSR, I offer an initial understanding of interactions within firm CSR operations. Theory on types of CSR have surfaced, yet empirical studies are few. In this research, I address this disparity by using original quantitative measures of both motive and type. The outcomes of this investigation challenge certain extant notions of CSR, while introducing a measure of objectivity in some long‐standing debates among scholars and corporate stakeholders.

If cinema represents the 'most replete and consuming instance of an interface for dreaming', what more can we expect of virtual technologies and Artificial Intelligence, or indeed, of computation in general, to create animated works that surpass our longstanding, heterogeneous, heritage of time-based visual media? The promise of VR and AI is arguably that of an ontological and ethical shift, one that takes us closer to a posthuman animation. Through a practice-based research process the author reports on the ways in which a VR/AI work, 'Return to the Library of Babel', deploys procedural animation and emergent spaces, engendering a dynamic, animated realm, one of situated, emergent, subjects and objects, within what Sara Ahmed frames as a political economy of, and, one might add a logic, of 'disorientation'. The paper was first presented at the 1st ANIVAE workshop on Animation in Virtual and Augmented Environments, 19 March 2018, Reutlingen, Germany.

We propose a non-parametric procedure for estimating the realized spot volatility of a price process described by an Itô semimartingale with Lévy jumps. The procedure integrates threshold jump elimination technique of Mancini (2009) with a frame (Gabor) expansion of the realized trajectory of spot volatility. We show that the procedure converges in probability in L²([0; T]) for a wide class of spot volatility processes, including those with discontinuous paths. Our analysis assumes the time interval between price observations tends to zero; as a result, the intended application is for the analysis of high frequency financial data. We investigate practical tests of market efficiency that are not subject to the joint-hypothesis problem inherent in tests that require the specification of an equilibrium model of asset prices. The methodology we propose simplify the testing procedure considerably by reframing the market efficiency question into one about the existence of a local martingale measure. As a consequence, the need to directly verify the no dominance condition is completely avoided. We also investigate market efficiency in the large financial market setting with the introduction of notions of asymptotic no dominance and market efficiency that remain consistent with the small market theory. We obtain a change of numeraire characterization of asymptotic market efficiency and suggest empirical tests of inefficiency in large financial markets. We argue empirically that the U.S. treasury futures market is informational inefficient. We show that an intraday strategy based on the assumption of cointegrated treasury futures prices earns statistically significant excess return over the equally weighted portfolio of treasury futures. We also provide empirical backing for the claim that the same strategy, financed by taking a short position in the 2-Year treasury futures contract, gives rise to a statistical arbitrage.

AbstractThis article examines why firms engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Specifically, it investigates the relationship between a firm's motivation to engage in CSR and the depth of its commitment. I propose that the enduring debate over CSR and financial performance is misaligned, and that scholars should instead focus on the underlying components of CSR engagement. This research sheds light on the motivational antecedents of a firm's engagement in CSR and their effect on CSR commitment. Despite calls for scientific investigation of this linkage, it has received scant attention in the literature. Pursuing this area of research requires the construction of measures of CSR motivation and CSR commitment, as prior work generally lacks objective analysis. I present measures and a research methodology that test hypotheses about how CSR motivation relates to different levels of CSR commitment. The results of this research both validate and challenge current theory. This refined understanding of CSR engagement may enhance firm transparency and accountability to stakeholders. It may reduce the uncertainty in both internal and external assessments of firm CSR and the potential for social and financial impact.