MARKET MANIPULATION: A SURVEY

Abstract Despite the significant attention that market manipulation has received in recent years many aspects of it are poorly understood. This article identifies from the theoretical and empirical literature what we do and do not know about market manipulation, and suggests directions for future research. We know that manipulation is possible and that it occurs in a wide variety of markets and circumstances. In contrast, we know little about how often manipulation occurs, its effects and how it responds to regulation. Suggested approaches for future research on these issues include: (1) collecting more comprehensive data sets of manipulation cases; (2) using detection controlled estimation methods to overcome sample selection and partial observability problems and (3) conducting controlled experiments. This article also constructs a novel and broad taxonomy of the different types of market manipulation and discusses approaches to defining manipulation.     

Do U.S. and Japanese uncertainty shocks play important roles in affecting transition mechanisms of Japanese stock market?

This research investigates the impacts of U.S. and Japanese uncertainty shocks on the transition mechanisms of the Japan stock market dynamics by utilizing the Markov-switching GARCH-jump model with a time-varying transition probability matrix and analyzes the economic policy uncertainty shock of Japan, the economic policy uncertainty shock of the U.S., and the uncertainty shock about the U.S. equity market volatility. The empirical results demonstrate that the Japan stock market responds to most shocks with the exception of the U.S. economic policy uncertainty shock. The equity market volatility shock of the U.S. plays a more crucial role than the economic policy uncertainty shock of Japan. Furthermore, an increase in the U.S. equity market volatility shock reveals totally different signals in different volatile states. It signals an adverse belief about the Japan stock market in a high-volatile state, but signals an optimism viewpoint about the Japan stock market in a low-volatile state. Finally, the impact of the uncertainty shock about the U.S. stock market volatility is stronger in a high-volatile market than in a low-volatile market.     

Structural estimation of behavioral heterogeneity

We develop a behavioral asset pricing model in which agents trade in a market with information friction. Profit‐maximizing agents switch between trading strategies in response to dynamic market conditions. Owing to noisy private information about the fundamental value, the agents form different evaluations about heterogeneous strategies. We exploit a thin set—a small sub‐population—to point identify this nonlinear model, and estimate the structural parameters using extended method of moments. Based on the estimated parameters, the model produces return time series that emulate the moments of the real data. These results are robust across different sample periods and estimation methods.     

Capitalizing Research & Development: Signaling or Earnings Management?

This paper analyzes the capitalization of Research & Development (R&D) expenditures under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Discretionary R&D capitalization can be exercised by managers to signal private information on future economic benefits to the market. It can, however, also serve as opportunistic earnings management. We analyze a unique, hand-collected sample of highly R&D intensive German IFRS firms during 1998–2012. We find that market values are not associated with capitalized R&D for the overall sample, indicating that earnings management may be a concern. We identify firm-years for which R&D capitalization is possibly used for pushing their earnings above a specific threshold (e.g. analysts' forecasted earnings, prior year's earnings). Our results show that both the decision to capitalize and how much to capitalize are strongly associated with benchmark beating. Consistently, we find that market values are negatively associated with capitalized R&D for firms who are likely to use capitalization for benchmark beating (about one third of the overall sample). On the other hand, the market values R&D capitalization positively for well-performing firms, for which capitalizing does not matter to beat an earnings benchmark (about half of the overall sample). This finding is robust to controls for endogeneity, various deflators, and different measures for earnings management.     

Catastrophe bond spread and hurricane arrival frequency

Catastrophe bonds are the most successful alternative risk transfer tools in transferring catastrophic insurance risk to capital markets. This research provides empirical insights about the predictive power of catastrophe bond spreads in forecasting catastrophe arrival frequency as a test of the catastrophe bond market’s price discovery efficacy. Primary-market data for cat bonds, catastrophe arrival frequency data for hurricanes and windstorms, and climate variable data for Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation and CO₂ change rate are collected over June 1997 to March 2013 to examine this power. The calibration results show that cat bond spreads convey valuable incremental information as measured by the Akaike Information Criterion. Furthermore, in an out-sample test for hurricanes prediction, merging the conventional climate variables approach with our market-based forward-looking predictions reduces prediction errors by about 3% over the sample period. As the catastrophe bond market continues to grow with increasing trading volume, a needed ingredient to enhance market efficiency, we would expect this measure of improvement to accentuate.     

独立董事及监察人与企业盈余品质的关联性

本研究目的在于探讨独立董事与监察人对企业盈余品质的影响,研究中以2004至2009年台湾上市(柜)公司为对象,采用panel data模式进行实证研究。研究结果指出,独立董事比例(或人数)对企业向下盈余管理有显著负向影响,这表明独立董事对企业向下盈余管理具有抑制作用;独立监察人比例(或人数)对企业向上盈余管理有显著负向影响,这表明独立监察人对企业向上盈余管理具有监督效果。此实证结果显示,独立董事与监察人在公司盈余品质监督上关注的重点不同。     

我国亏损上市公司盈余管理实证研究

盈余管理对企业的发展产生有其特定的理论背景,结合国内外的研究状况对其进行了分析。选取上海A股市场上市公司财务数据,并划分为首亏样本和扭亏样本,以首亏样本财务数据研究亏损上市公司在首亏年度和首次亏损出现的前一年是否存在盈余管理;以扭亏样本研究扭亏年度的盈余管理行为。同时为这些样本选择了规模相近的控制样本,组成控制样本组,并选择迪安戈模型进行研究。研究结果显示,在t检验和威尔科森秩检验下数据均在不同显著性水平下通过检验。     

Four types of innovators: a conceptual and empirical study of new,technology-based companies as innovators

This article discusses and analyses different roles of new, technology-based companies as innovators. A taxonomy of four innovator types is constructed and discussed. The four innovator types are labelled as: paradigm innovators, technology innovatos, market innovators, and application innovators. When analysing an empirical sample of new, technology-based companies, paradigm innovators are found to be the result of a more extensive research work experience, to rely more on the incubator organization as growth t~asis and as provider of initial technology, and to be more active in exploiting external technolclgy sources. When comparing databases consisting of the spin-off companies of the Technical Research Center of Finland VTT, and Cambridge University, it is found that paradigm inntovators are relatively much more frequent in the Cambridge sample. This difference may be due to the more academic orientation of Cambridge University and the more practical, industry-related orientation of the Technical Research Center of Finland. This finding suggests that different types of research institutions tend to emit different spectres of innovating spin-off companies. More research is needed to confirm the results of this study.     

Sampling for Possibilities

This paper views empirical research as a search for illustrations of interesting possibilities which have occurred, and the exploration of the variety of such possibilities in a sample or universe. This leads to a definition of illustrative inference (in contrast to statistical inference), which, we argue, is of considerable importance in many fields of inquiry – ranging from market research and qualitative research in social science, to cosmology. Sometimes, it may be helpful to model illustrative inference quantitatively, so that the size of a sample can be linked to its power (for illustrating possibilities): we outline one model based on probability theory, and another based on a resampling technique.     

Banks' environmental policy and business outcomes: The role of competition

By integrating the two areas of competition–performance and environment–performance, this research explores if competition matters in the relationship between environmental practices and interest margins in the market. A panel of 458 banks from 74 countries for the period of 2006–2016 is used, and the sample is further divided into developed and developing countries. This paper uses the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator to tackle potential omitted variable bias, endogeneity, and simultaneity issues. Without competition, environmental practices only affect banks in developing countries; however, the results show a significant impact for the full sample, including developed countries, when the competition is taken into consideration, suggesting that competition might play a role in the relationship of environmental practices and interest margins. In the full sample, competition impacts the relationship negatively after a moderate level of competition is reached in the market. The environmental practices in developing countries are prone to competition in the market. In developed countries, the competition is found to be lightly positively moderating the impact of environmental practices on interest margins. Based on these findings, it is recommended that developing countries should have a low or moderate level of competition to encourage environmental practices. For developed countries, however, high competition should be preferred to encourage banks to consider environmental practices as one of their core business strategies. These findings are found robust to different statistical estimators.     

房地产市场产品定位策略的实证分析——以武汉市新推楼盘为例

在我国房地产市场上,一个楼盘项目中经常会同时配置面积大小不等的多个户型,但目前对于这种现象的研究十分有限。本文通过搜集武汉市近3年来331个新推楼盘的资料,对所得的数据进行二元Logistic回归处理后发现,建筑类别、装修状况、建筑面积和规划户数对于武汉市房地产企业的产品定位策略有着显著影响,而区位、物业类别、开发商类型和住房均价对房地产企业的产品定位策略影响并不显著。     

我国城市土地价格影响因素研究综述

近年来,房地产市场发展带来的城市土地价格飞涨引起了各界人士的关注与探讨,城市土地价格已成为重要的研究课题。本文拟针对国内关于城市土地价格影响因素的研究成果进行归纳和总结,期望对未来的研究及土地价格管理提供参考。     

Non‐linear Predictability of UK Stock Market Returns*

Linear predictability of stock market returns has been widely reported. However, recently developed theoretical research has suggested that due to the interaction of noise and arbitrage traders, stock returns are inherently non‐linear, whereby market dynamics differ between small and large returns. This paper examines whether an exponential smooth transition threshold model, which is capable of capturing this non‐linear behaviour, can provide a better characterization of UK stock market returns than either a linear model or an alternate non‐linear model. The results of both in‐sample and out‐of‐sample specification tests support the exponential smooth transition threshold model and hence the belief that investor behaviour does differ between large and small returns.     

住宅市场与城市经济互动机理研究综述与展望

认为住宅市场与城市经济体系之间的双向作用关系,是目前在理论研究和实践中亟需解决的热点问题;建立了住宅市场与城市经济互动机理的研究框架,并分别介绍了城市经济对住宅市场的影响效应和住宅市场对城市经济的反向作用机制近期的研究成果;依据我国目前该领域的研究现状,提出了在我国进行住宅市场与城市经济互动机理研究的建议.     

商业银行市场结构与绩效关系的研究综述

伴随着我国商业银行的改组与上市,商业银行市场结构发生了转变,在绩效方面也得到了较大提高,但与国外商业银行相比,我国银行业的实际绩效相对较低,在经营绩效和管理效率等方面存在亟待解决的不足之处。国外关于商业银行市场结构与绩效方面的学术研究已相当丰富,我国学者近来也在这一领域不断取得进展。本文将对国内外关于商业银行市场结构与绩效这一方面的研究成果进行简单的解释与归纳概括,希望能够为商业银行的绩效研究提供有益的参考。     

中小型企业如何进行新产品的开发

不断开发新产品是中小型企业摆脱困境的重要途径。本文从改革新产品开发机制、改进开发程序、策动全员进行市场调研、抓好项目论证评审及落实研制进度等方面对新产品开发的策划问题进行了讨论。     

Market portfolio efficiency and value stocks

In this journal, Best, Best, and Yoder (2000) recently demonstrated that portfolios of U.S. value stocks dominate portfolios of U.S. growth stocks in terms of second-order stochastic dominance (SSD). We cannot conclude from this finding that the market is SSD inefficient, however, because market portfolio efficiency generally does not require growth portfolios to be efficient. Furthermore, stochastic dominance results are very sensitive to sampling error. In fact, the value-weighted market portfolio is not significantly inefficient, and no significant value effects exist in the sample of Best, Best, and Yoder. This study forms part of a research program on stochastic dominance. Details on the program are available at http://www.few.eur.nl/few/people/gtpost/stochastic_dominance.htm. We appreciate the comments of an anonymous referee. The financial support of Tinbergen Institute, Erasmus Research Institute of Management, and Erasmus Center of Financial Research is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are the authors' responsibility.     

Explaining variance in the accuracy of prediction markets

Thus far, the focus in prediction market research has been on establishing its forecast accuracy relative to those of other prediction methods, or on the investigation of a few single sources of forecast error. This article is the first attempt to overcome the narrow focus of the literature by combining observational and experimental analyses of prediction market errors. It investigates the prediction error of a real money prediction market uusing a logarithmic market scoring rule for 65 direct democratic votes in Switzerland. The article distinguishes between prediction market error due to the setup of the market, features of the event to be predicted, and the participants involved, and finds that the prediction market accuracy varies primarily according to the setup of the market, with the features of the event and especially the composition of the participant sample hardly mattering.     

How to Identify and Forecast Bull and Bear Markets?

Because the state of the equity market is latent, several methods have been proposed to identify past and current states of the market and forecast future ones. These methods encompass semi‐parametric rule‐based methods and parametric Markov switching models. We compare the mean‐variance utilities that result when a risk‐averse agent uses the predictions of the different methods in an investment decision. Our application of this framework to the S&P 500 shows that rule‐based methods are preferable for (in‐sample) identification of the state of the market, but Markov switching models for (out‐of‐sample) forecasting. In‐sample, only the mean return of the market index matters, which rule‐based methods exactly capture. Because Markov switching models use both the mean and the variance to infer the state, they produce superior forecasts and lead to significantly better out‐of‐sample performance than rule‐based methods. We conclude that the variance is a crucial ingredient for forecasting the market state. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Uncovering the hidden transaction costs of market power: A property rights approach to strategic positioning

A central construct in competitive strategy research is market power, the ability to raise price above marginal cost. Positioning research focuses on attempts to build, protect, and exercise market power. However, this approach contains hidden assumptions about transaction costs. Parties made worse off by the exercise of market power can negotiate, bargain, form coalitions, and otherwise contract around the focal firm's attempts to appropriate monopoly profits—depending on transaction costs. We build on property rights economics to explain how transaction costs affect positioning and offer propositions about successful positioning in an environment with transaction costs.