Dorothy Thompson

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates the effect that the Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (SFAS) 158 has on credit ratings for firms with defined benefit pension plans. The results show that, relative to other firms, firms that sponsor defined benefit pension plans have higher corporate credit ratings and that those scores decrease after the implementation of SFAS158. In addition, the more funded a defined benefit pension plan, the greater the credit rating. This positive relationship decreases after the implementation of SFAS 158. I rationalize these findings by asserting that defined benefit pension plan firms are subject to greater regulated scrutiny from the U. S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service through pension plan audits, which results in higher credit quality. This favorable effect on credit quality decreases, however, after the implementation of SFAS 158 due to the increased recognition of the previously disclosed pension liability on the balance sheet. Dissertation Discovery Company and Jacksonville University are dedicated to making scholarly works more discoverable and accessible throughout the world. This dissertation, "Credit Ratings, Defined Benefit Pension Plans and SFAS 158: An Empirical Examination of Their Relationship" by Dorothy A. Thompson, was obtained from Jacksonville University and is being sold with permission from the author. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation.

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates the effect that the Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (SFAS) 158 has on credit ratings for firms with defined benefit pension plans. The results show that, relative to other firms, firms that sponsor defined benefit pension plans have higher corporate credit ratings and that those scores decrease after the implementation of SFAS158. In addition, the more funded a defined benefit pension plan, the greater the credit rating. This positive relationship decreases after the implementation of SFAS 158. I rationalize these findings by asserting that defined benefit pension plan firms are subject to greater regulated scrutiny from the U. S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service through pension plan audits, which results in higher credit quality. This favorable effect on credit quality decreases, however, after the implementation of SFAS 158 due to the increased recognition of the previously disclosed pension liability on the balance sheet. Dissertation Discovery Company and Jacksonville University are dedicated to making scholarly works more discoverable and accessible throughout the world. This dissertation, "Credit Ratings, Defined Benefit Pension Plans and SFAS 158: An Empirical Examination of Their Relationship" by Dorothy A. Thompson, was obtained from Jacksonville University and is being sold with permission from the author. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation.

This is the first collection of essays on Chartism by leading social historian Dorothy Thompson, whose work radically transformed the way in which Chartism is understood. Reclaiming Chartism as a fully blown working-class movement, Thompson intertwines her penetrating analyses of class with groundbreaking research uncovering the role played by women in the movement. Throughout her essays, Thompson strikes a delicate balance between on-the-ground accounts of local uprisings, snappy portraits of high-profile Chartist figures as well as rank-and-file men and women, and more theoretical, polemical interventions. Of particular historical and political significance is the previously unpublished substantial essay coauthored by Dorothy and Edward Thompson, a superb piece of local historical research by two social historians then on the brink of notable careers.

Queen Victoria came to the throne almost without resources, under threat from republicanism, in a period of social, political and economic turbulence. She died, having revived the failing image of the British monarchy, head of one of the world's richest families. Victoria was the first monarch in British history to combine the public role of head of state with the private one of wife and mother. Alone among married women she was not governed by laws which stipulated surrendering both name and fortune to one's husband. Yet she herself opposed the movement for women's rights. The complex effects of Victoria's gender on public attitudes and her own actions are brilliantly drawn out in this intriguing book.

This book brings together Dorothy Thompson's most important essays on English social history, written over the last 25 years, many previously unpublished. Thompson analyzes the Chartist movement, not simply as a political programme, however significant, but as the mass phenomenon which offers the focus for an "elucidation of the concept of class". Thompson is also concerned with Queen Victoria: how did a woman holding the highest office in the land affect British women and was it a factor in the non-republican stance of radical politics of the time? The essays are complemented by an introduction in which Dorothy Thompson reflects on the politics of the period in which she wrote them, on her own political involvements and on the relationship of her work as a historian to that of her husband, E. P. Thompson. The book should make a useful introductory text for students of history. It includes Thompson's essays on women's activism in early radical politics and 19th century popular politics. The book should also attract a wide general readership.

The friendship between Dorothy Thompson and Rose Wilder Lane began in 1920 in the publicity office of the American Red Cross in Paris and continued until Thompson's death in 1961. Although both women are today remembered primarily for their connections with others - Thompson as the wife of Sinclair Lewis and Lane as the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the ""Little House"" books - each can be regarded as remarkable in her own right. Both women are described as having had a vital engagement with life that led them in fearless pursuit of experience. In 1939, Thompson appeared on the cover of ""Time"", which judged her second only to Eleanor Roosevelt among the influential women of the day. Typical of Lane were her travels through the mountains of Albania, the deserts of Syria and Soviet Georgia in the 1920s and her visit as a journalist to Vietnam in 1965 at the age of 78. The correspondence of these two women reveals their personal concerns, social ideas and political/economic philosophies and how they changed over time. Their letters tell the story of the first generation of women to come of age during the 20th century, as they tried to cope with problems that still face women today. Along with the letters themselves, Holtz has included annotations and footnotes that provide biographical information, as well as explaining personal and topical references.

In 1910, Mrs. Lydia A. Marfteet of Prophetstown, Illinois, endowed this Lectureship in memory of her late husband and as an expression of the regard which she and her husband had for this City and this University. Dorothy Thompson's topic as the Marfleet Lecturer is "The Crisis of the West." "Crisis" is defined as a turning point. In what direction does the arrow point?