Option Prices as Predictors of Equilibrium Stock Prices

The Black-Scholes option pricing model, modified for dividend payments, is used to calculate jointly implied stock prices and implied standard deviations. A comparison of the implied stock prices with observed stock prices reveals that the implied prices contain information regarding equilibrium stock prices that is not fully reflected in observed stock prices. The implications of this finding are discussed.     

True Spreads and Equilibrium Prices

Stocks and other financial assets are traded at prices that lie on a fixed grid determined by the minimum tick size. Observed prices and quoted spreads do not correspond to the equilibrium prices and true spreads that would exist in a market with no minimum tick size. Using Monte Carlo Markov Chain methods, this paper estimates the equilibrium prices and true spreads. For large stocks, most of the quoted spread is attributable to the rounding of prices and the adverse selection component is small. The true spread and the adverse selection component are greater for mid-sized stocks.     

Why Option Prices Lag Stock Prices: A Trading-based Explanation

While many studies find that option prices lead stock prices, Stephan and Whaley (1990) find that stocks lead options. We find no evidence that options, even deep out-of-the-money options, lead stocks. After confirming Stephan and Whaley's results, we show their results can be explained as spurious leads induced by infrequent trading of options. We show that the stock lead disappears when the average of the bid and ask prices is used instead of transaction prices. Hence, we find no evidence of arbitrage opportunities associated with the stock lead.     

China's Imported Inflation and Global Commodity Prices

In this paper, we outline China's imported inflation via global commodity prices. We show that the prices of China's imported commodities are strongly related to global commodity prices. Meanwhile, the final goods prices from upstream industries are strongly influenced by global commodity prices. However, this effect is partially offset by the production process—that is, the final goods prices in downstream industries are generally less affected by global prices. This indicates that China's commodity market has a close link with global commodity markets. Therefore, high global commodity prices generally squeeze profits in China's downstream industries; upstream industries generally benefit from high global commodity prices.     

人民币汇率与我国股价、房价的联动关系研究

近年来,我国人民币汇率形成机制、股票市场和房地产市场发生了巨大变化,人民币汇率和股价、房价之间的信息传导和波动关联备受瞩目。本文采用VAR-MGARCH-BEKK模型,分析了我国人民币汇率、股价和房价之间的联动关系。研究结果表明,从波动的溢出效应来看,人民币汇率的波动率、股票价格的增长率和房地产价格的增长率之间存在非常明显的波动溢出效应;从资产价格的水平影响来看,人民币汇率与股票价格、房地产价格等国内资产价格的水平相关性较弱,而股票价格对房地产价格的影响较明显,并就该结论提出了相关的理论解释和政策建议。     

On the Transmission of World Agricultural Prices

Two questions are asked about the relationship between domesticprices and world prices of agricultural commodities: are variationsin world prices transmitted to domestic prices, and do thesevariations in world prices constitute an important componentof variations in domestic prices? Domestic prices are regressedon world prices in various forms, taking into account the possibleeffects of exchange rates and inflation. The empirical analysisis based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organizationof the United Nations for 58 countries for 1968–78 andfor the countries of the European Community for 1961–85.The results show that most of the variations in world pricesare transmitted and that they constitute the dominant componentin the variations of domestic prices.     

Feedback Effects and Asset Prices

Feedback effects from asset prices to firm cash flows have been empirically documented. This finding raises a question for asset pricing: How are asset prices determined if price affects fundamental value, which in turn affects price? In this environment, by buying assets that others are buying, investors ensure high future cash flows for the firm and subsequent high returns for themselves. Hence, investors have an incentive to coordinate, which may generate self‐fulfilling beliefs and multiple equilibria. Using insights from global games, we pin down investors' beliefs, analyze equilibrium prices, and show that strong feedback leads to higher excess volatility.     

Prices are sticky after all

Economists have interpreted the evidence that prices change every four months as implying that sticky prices cannot be important for monetary transmission. Theory implies that this interpretation is correct if most price changes are regular, but not if a large fraction are temporary, as in the data. Since regular prices are much stickier than temporary ones, our models predict that the stickiness of the aggregate price level matches that in a standard Calvo model or a standard menu cost model in which micro-level prices change about once a year. In this sense, prices are sticky after all.     

Joint Dynamics of House Prices and Foreclosures

This paper studies the joint transitional dynamics of the foreclosures and house prices in a standard life‐cycle incomplete markets model with housing and a realistic long‐term mortgage structure. We calibrate our model to match several long‐term features of the U.S. housing market, and analyze the effects of several unexpected and permanent shocks on the house price and the foreclosure rate both across the steady states and along the transition between the steady states. We examine permanent, unexpected shocks to the risk‐free interest rate, the minimum down‐payment ratio, and unemployment. During the transition, these shocks create large movements in house prices. More importantly, the foreclosure dynamics are quite significant along the transition compared to the steady‐state changes, and there are strong feedbacks between foreclosures and house prices. We assess the effects of a temporary reduction in the risk‐free interest rate, which has moderate effects on house prices but little effect on foreclosure dynamics. We also study the effects of an ex ante macroprudential policy, which establishes a minimum down‐payment requirement at a higher threshold. Such a macroprudential policy helps substantially stabilize both house prices and foreclosures.     

Business Cycles and the Behavior of Metals Prices

The theory of storage says that the marginal convenience yield on inventory falls at a decreasing rate as inventory increases. The authors test this hypothesis by examining the relative variation of spot and futures prices for metals. As the hypothesis implies, futures prices are less variable than spot prices when inventory is low, but spot and futures prices have similar variability when inventory is high. The theory of storage also explains inversions of “normal” futures-spot price relations around business-cycle peaks. Positive demand shocks around peaks reduce metal inventories and, as the theory predicts, generate large convenience yields and price inversions.     

Restaurant Prices and the Minimum Wage

In this paper, we examine the effect of the minimum wage on restaurant prices. We contribute both to the study of economic impact of the minimum wage and to the study of microeconomic patterns of price stickiness. For this purpose, we use a unique data set of individual price quotes collected to calculate the Consumer Price Index in France and we estimate a price rigidity model based on a flexible rule. We find a positive and significant impact of the minimum wage on prices. The effect of the minimum wage on prices is, however, very protracted. A change in the minimum wage takes more than a year to fully pass through to retail prices.     

House Prices and Government Spending Shocks

We show that dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with housing and collateralized borrowing predict a fall in house prices following positive government spending shocks. By contrast, we show that house prices in the United States rise persistently after identified positive government spending shocks. We clarify that the incorrect house price response is due to a general property of DSGE models—approximately constant shadow value of housing—and that modifying preferences and production structure cannot help in obtaining the correct house price response. Properly accounting for the empirical evidence on government spending shocks and house prices using a DSGE model therefore remains a significant challenge.     

Government Intervention and Information Aggregation by Prices

Governments intervene in firms' lives in a variety of ways. To enhance the efficiency of government intervention, many researchers and policy makers call for governments to make use of information contained in stock market prices. However, price informativeness is endogenous to government policy. We analyze government policy in light of this endogeneity. In some cases, it is optimal for a government to commit to limit its reliance on market prices to avoid harming the aggregation of information into market prices. For similar reasons, it is optimal for a government to limit transparency in some dimensions.     

国家调控土地价格的国际经验及启示

国土资源部中国土地勘测规划院近日公布了2013年第一季度全国城市地价监测数据,数据显示,一线城市住宅地价全部环比上涨,二线城市中除哈尔滨外全部上涨,三线城市上涨的占81.15%。专家称货币宽松和流动性释放推动地价上涨,房地产开发用地供地面积同比增幅超过45%,目前我国房地产市场调控仍处于关键时期,调控土地价格势在必行。本文归纳总结了目前我国土地价格上涨情况,收集整理了国外部分国家调控土地价格的经验做法,提出了抑制我国土地价格上涨的建议。     

Option Prices and the Underlying Asset's Return Distribution

This work examines the relation between option prices and the true, as opposed to risk-neutral, distribution of the underlying asset. If the underlying asset follows a diffusion with an instantaneous expected return at least as large as the instantaneous risk-free rate, observed option prices can be used to place bounds on the moments of the true distribution. An illustration of the paper's results is provided by the analysis of the information concerning the mean and standard deviation of market returns contained in the prices of S&P 100 Index Options.     

住房价格、金融稳定与宏观审慎政策

本文通过建立包含异质性家庭、异质性厂商和金融机构的DSGE模型,分析对预期房价作出反应的货币政策和宏观审慎政策的传导机制和政策效果,研究不同政策的选择和协调问题。研究发现,首先,由于政策的作用范围不同,不同政策会对金融稳定和经济稳定产生不同影响。对预期房价作出反应的货币政策能够抑制住房需求和信贷供给,但也会抑制消费需求和产出;而对预期房价作出反应的逆周期LTV政策和逆周期资本充足率政策在应对房价波动导致的金融稳定问题时更加有的放矢。其次,外生冲击的来源会影响政策的选择和协调——当经济波动来源于需求冲击时,固定LTV政策搭配逆周期资本充足率的宏观审慎政策、不对预期房价作出反应的货币政策表现最优;当经济波动来源于供给冲击时,固定LTV政策搭配逆周期资本充足率的宏观审慎政策、对预期房价作出反应的货币政策表现最优。     

资产价格波动与银行系统稳定

有关金融危机的理论研究表明,资产价格波动与银行脆弱性之间存在很强的相关性。资产价格波动主要通过信贷风险渠道、市场风险渠道、经纪业务收入渠道、为附属机构注资的风险渠道及“第二回合”渠道等传导渠道影响到银行系统的稳定。发生在斯堪的纳维亚和日本的银行危机证明,资产价格剧烈波动确实会造成严重的银行问题,所以为维持银行系统的稳定,监管当局应该密切关注资产价格可能出现的剧烈下跌对银行部门可能产生的风险并采取应对方法。     

Do Behavioral Biases Affect Prices?

This paper documents strong evidence for behavioral biases among Chicago Board of Trade proprietary traders and investigates the effect these biases have on prices. Our traders appear highly loss‐averse, regularly assuming above‐average afternoon risk to recover from morning losses. This behavior has important short‐term consequences for afternoon prices, as losing traders actively purchase contracts at higher prices and sell contracts at lower prices than those that prevailed previously. However, the market appears to distinguish these risk‐seeking trades from informed trading. Prices set by loss‐averse traders are reversed significantly more quickly than those set by unbiased traders.     

Long Memory In Futures Prices

This paper tests for fractional roots in the futures prices for selected commodities, foreign currencies, and stock indexes. The fractional testing method is the spectral regression method suggested by Geweke and Porter-Hudak (1983). The empirical results suggest the presence of a fractional exponent in the differencing process for several commodity and foreign currency futures prices. The returns series for these commodities and currencies exhibit long range positive dependence. However, differencing of exact order one is sufficient for the stock index futures prices. Implications are drawn concerning theoretical and econometric modeling and price forecasting.     

After-Hours Stock Prices and Post-Crash Hangovers

After-hours pricing in foreign equity markets of multiple-listed U.S. securities appeared to be efficient in predicting New York prices in the weeks immediately following the October 1987 crash but relatively uninformative in succeeding months. By contrast, daily changes in New York prices appear to be efficiently incorporated in after-hours trading on both the Tokyo and London exchanges throughout the sample period. This paper suggests that the asymmetry and temporal variations in cross-market correlations are consistent with rational investor behavior in equity markets with nonzero transaction costs and time-varying share price volatility.