Minimal Hellinger martingale measures of order <Emphasis Type="Italic">q</Emphasis>

This paper proposes an extension of the minimal Hellinger martingale measure (MHM hereafter) concept to any order q≠1 and to the general semimartingale framework. This extension allows us to provide a unified formulation for many optimal martingale measures, including the minimal martingale measure of Föllmer and Schweizer (here q=2). Under some mild conditions of integrability and the absence of arbitrage, we show the existence of the MHM measure of order q and describe it explicitly in terms of pointwise equations in ? ^d . Applications to the maximization of expected power utility at stopping times are given. We prove that, for an agent to be indifferent with respect to the liquidation time of her assets (which is the market’s exit time, supposed to be a stopping time, not any general random time), she is forced to consider a habit formation utility function instead of the original utility, or equivalently she is forced to consider a time-separable preference with a stochastic discount factor.     

Ethics <Emphasis Type="Italic">versus</Emphasis> Ethos in US and UK Megabanking

Company law in the US and UK fails to acknowledge that authorities’ propensity to rescue giant banks from the consequences of insolvency creates an implicit contract that assigns taxpayers a coerced and badly structured equity stake in too-big-to-fail institutions. The entrenched managerial norm of maximizing stockholder value abuses this stake. It does so by lending an undeserved moral legitimacy to efforts by TBTF managers to take on dangerous levels of tail risk because their bank’s deep downside is effectively eliminated by the prospect of unlimited taxpayer support. Conventional tools of prudential regulation constrain but do not de-legitimate this behavior. To accomplish that end, this paper calls for: (1) a formal recognition of the fiduciary duties and dividends that TBTF firms owe to taxpayers and (2) criminalizing aggressive pursuit of safety-net subsidies as a form of public endangerment.     

Punitive Damages in Bad Faith Actions Against Insurers in the USA: The Impact of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Campbell v. State Farm</Emphasis>

This article provides an overview of the history and practice of punitive damages in the USA, including U.S. Supreme Court resistance to punitive damages beginning in the 1990s. The 2003 Campbell decision continued this doctrinal trend in an case of seemingly egregious insurer “bad faith.” Examining insurance bad faith cases after Campbell, it appears that the Court’s decision had a practical impact as well as a doctrinal impact. Since Campbell, insurers appear to have enjoyed greater judicial protection against punitive damages in bad faith cases, expanding a trend discernable after the Court’s 1996 BMW v. Gore decision. However, the 50 states have not modified their jury instructions on punitive damages since these decisions, seemingly ceding this area to the courts as a matter of federal constitutional review. The 2007 Williams v. Philip Morris decision continued the trend in a non-insurance case, as the court overturned a large punitive award against a tobacco company.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Shariah</Emphasis>-compliant equities: Empirical evaluation of performance in the European market during credit crunch

Islamic finance is based on the Islamic Jurisprudence as prescribed by the Shariah, and has witnessed significant growth and development in the recent decades. During the period of economic slowdown and following the financial crisis during FY 2007–2009, it was claimed that Islamic financial system seemed to be better in coping with economic slowdowns than conventional financial systems. The article analyses whether the same holds true for Shariah-compliant equities in the market, that is, whether Shariah-compliant equities perform better in the market as compared to the general market. Three portfolios are constructed based on the constituents of S&P Europe 350 to represent the overall market, the market without the financial firms and the market of Shariah-compliant equities. It is found that the portfolio of Shariah-compliant equities outperforms the other two portfolios in all aspects of analysis. However, it slightly underperforms the market portfolio when there is an upward growth trend in the economy. The findings of this article are very relevant for policymakers, investors and fund managers to determine policy matters, deciding on investment and marketing strategy for Islamic capital market products.     

The role of electronic word of mouth,conventional media,and subjective norms on the intention to purchase <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sharia</Emphasis> insurance services

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and conventional media on subjective norms and intention to purchase Sharia insurance in Indonesian Muslim society. The research data consisted of 458 Muslim clients who were members of an online community and also policy holders of Sharia insurance in the three largest cities in Indonesia: Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya. This study used purposive sampling and structural equation modeling. The research showed that eWOM and conventional media can affect subjective norms. Additionally, subjective norms have a significant effect on the intention to purchase among Sharia insurance customers. This study validated the importance of the variables of eWOM and conventional media in influencing subjective norms and intention to purchase. For Sharia insurance company management, this study can serve as a very useful reference in drafting and formulating campaign strategies. This study also justifies the integrated relationship between eWOM and conventional media with subjective norms and intention to purchase Sharia insurance.     

Through bubbles and crises: An analysis of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Journal of Financial Services Marketing</Emphasis> from 2000 to 2012

This article presents an analysis of all publications of the Journal of Financial Services Marketing (JFSM), from 2000 until the end of 2012. The objectives of this study were: (i) to compare the subjects covered by the journal with industry trends, and identify opportunities for future research, and (ii) to assess the journal’s development over time and its influence in the field of financial services marketing. Data for this content analysis was collected manually from the publisher’s Website and from each paper, and a grounded theory approach was used to group the papers into clusters based on emerging themes. The study indicates that JFSM has been successful in covering the industry’s most important trends, including mobile banking, relationship management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and service quality. A number of gaps were identified, in particular regarding mobile banking services and the impact of new online business models (for example, PayPal, crowdfunding, Bitcoin). These findings should assist JFSM’s editorial board to determine its future direction, and offer readers insight into industry trends and the journal’s role in covering them.     

Point redemption matters: A response to Murthi <Emphasis Type="Italic">et al</Emphasis> (2011)

Murthi et al (2011) addressed a controversy about the benefits of loyalty programs within the credit-card industry. One of their findings was that rewards cardholders were less profitable than non-rewards cardholders. This paper will address two opportunities for further research based on their finding. One opportunity is the investigation of rewards and non-rewards credit-card customers in a context which allows for more associations with the firm than just credit cards. Another opportunity is the segmentation of rewards cardholders into those redeeming rewards and those who do not. The present paper investigates the profitability of credit-card customers in terms of the credit card itself (product profit) and in terms of all of a firm’s products held by the customer (relationship profit). Rewards cardholders are segmented based on their level of redemption. This study finds that cardholders who do not redeem points dilute the profitability of cardholders who do redeem their points when both segments are viewed together. Cardholders who redeem points are found to be more profitable than non-rewards cardholders in terms of both product and relationship. This study also finds that higher levels of redemption correspond with higher profitability at both the product and relationship levels.     

Strong Increases in Downside Risk Aversion

A ranking of risk preferences is of economic interest insofar as it leads to unambiguous comparative statics predictions, and for this to be the case, the ranking must be a strict partial ordering. The ranking by greater risk aversion meets this demand at the second order, and yields a variety of well-known predictions concerning the effect of greater risk aversion on demands for insurance and risky assets, among many other applications. There has been less success at the third order, where ranking preferences by aversion to downside risk has not produced a strict partial ordering. The problem is that account has not been taken of the fact that an increase in downside risk aversion must induce changes in risk aversion as well. We propose a definition of stronger downside risk aversion that does yield a strict partial ordering by requiring a nested increase in both second- and third-order risk aversion, so that v is more strongly downside risk averse than u if v is more risk averse and more downside risk averse than u. We demonstrate that v being more strongly downside risk averse than u is characterized by v never liking any change in the probability distribution for y that induces a third-order stochastic dominance deterioration in the distribution for u(y). We apply the definition to obtain intuitive comparative statics predictions in the precautionary saving problem, and relate the definition to alternatives proposed in the literature.     

Risk Aversion,Downside Risk Aversion and Paying for Stochastic Improvements

This paper considers the relationship between risk preferences and the willingness to pay for stochastic improvements. We show that if the stochastic improvement satisfies a double-crossing condition, then a decision maker with utility v is willing to pay more than a decision maker with utility u, if v is both more risk averse and less downside risk averse than u. As the condition always holds in the case of self-protection, the result implies novel characterizations of individuals’ willingness to pay to reduce the probability of loss. By establishing a general result on the correspondence between an individual's willingness to pay, and his optimal purchase of stochastic improvement when there is a given relationship between stochastic improvements and the amount paid for them, we further show that all results on the willingness to pay can be applied directly to characterize the conditions under which a more risk averse individual will optimally choose to buy more stochastic improvement. Generalizations of existing results on optimal choice of self-protection can be obtained as corollaries.     

Small-time ruin for a financial process modulated by a Harris recurrent Markov chain

We consider a nonstandard ruin problem where: (i) the increments of the process are heavy-tailed and Markov-dependent, modulated by a general Harris recurrent Markov chain; (ii) ruin occurs when a positive boundary is attained within a sufficiently small time. Our main result provides sharp asymptotics for the small-time probability of ruin, viz., P(sup? _{n≤δ u} S _n ≥u), where {S _n } denotes the discrete partial sums of the process and δ∈(0,1/μ), where μ is the mean drift. We apply our results to obtain risk estimates which quantify, e.g., repetitive operational risk losses or the extremal behavior for a GARCH(1,1) process.     

Impact of website characteristics on relationship quality: a comparison of banks financial cooperatives

This study seeks to investigate differences exhibited by bank customers and members of financial cooperatives respecting website characteristics (website design, convenience, information quality, ease of use and security/confidentiality) and their impact on online relationship quality (composed of trust, commitment and satisfaction). An online survey was conducted with 476 banking sector customers (banks and financial cooperatives), followed by a confirmatory factors analysis and multigroup analysis using EQS 6.2 software. Results evidence a significant difference in terms of website design and security/confidentiality. The impact of these variables on relationship quality proves significantly higher in the case of banks. This study submits that web strategies used by banks and financial cooperatives to develop online relationship quality may vary based on the type of organization.     

Online banking services: a meta-analytic review and assessment of the impact of antecedents and consequents on satisfaction

This paper provides a meta-analysis of the generalizations in the relationships between the antecedents and consequents of satisfaction with online banking services. In total, 118 observations were analysed, with a sample of 49,607 respondents in 39 published articles from studies indexed in ten databases (Jstor, Emerald, PsycINFO, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier Science Direct, Scopus, ProQuest, SciELO, Google Scholar and EBSCO). Specifically, for the data analysis, we used the correlation coefficient r (plus χ², f test, t test, z test and β values). The results showed that constructs related to uncertainty, as evoked by online devices, system performance, quality of device content and online banking device structures, are significant and positive antecedents of consumer satisfaction. We also found that satisfaction with online banking services promotes trust and loyalty. Finally, we also detected that the relationship between reliability, satisfaction and service quality is stronger among Western banking consumers.     

Quadratic minimization with portfolio and terminal wealth constraints

We address a problem of stochastic optimal control drawn from the area of mathematical finance. The goal is to minimize the expected value of a general quadratic loss function of the wealth at close of trade when there is a specified convex constraint on the portfolio over the trading interval, together with a specified almost-sure lower-bound on the wealth at close of trade. We use a variational approach of Rockafellar which leads naturally to an appropriate vector space of dual variables, a dual functional on the space of dual variables such that the dual problem of maximizing the dual functional is guaranteed to have a solution (i.e. a Lagrange multiplier) when a simple and natural Slater condition holds for the terminal wealth constraint, and obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality of a candidate wealth process. The dual variables are pairs, each comprising an Itô process paired with a member of the adjoint of the space of essentially bounded random variables measurable with respect to the event \(\sigma \)-algebra at close of trade. The necessary and sufficient conditions are used to construct an optimal portfolio in terms of the Lagrange multiplier. The dual problem simplifies to maximization of a concave function over the real line when the portfolio is unconstrained but the terminal wealth constraint is maintained.     

Towards a better understanding of mobile banking: the impact of customer experience on trust and commitment

In the current context of ubiquitous connectedness through portable mobile devices and services, it is important to comprehend more fully the nature of consumer/bank interactions and relationships. At the same time, firms in the service sector are trying to provide customers with impactful positive experiences. This article examines the impact of mobile banking experience on trust and commitment based on the customer experience dimensions defined by Schmitt and expanded to include the negative aspect of the affective dimension. A total of 396 panellists of a recognized Canadian research firm responded to a self-administered online questionnaire. Findings demonstrate that the cognitive and negative affective dimensions of mobile experience impact trust, whereas the positive affective/sensory dimension influences commitment. The behavioural and social dimensions do not have significant impacts. This study enriches the theoretical corpus of knowledge in customer experience, relationship marketing and m-banking literature, lending practical implications for mobile services managers. Financial institutions, for example, should offer sensory mobile applications designed to appeal to the eye or to the touch (positive affective/sensory dimension), provide tools and information intended to arouse user curiosity and provoke reflection (cognitive dimension), while avoiding negative experiences which can lead to damaging feelings/emotions such as disappointment and anger (negative affective dimension).     

Beyond Risk Aversion: Why,How and What's Next?

Risk attitudes other than risk aversion (e.g. prudence and temperance) are becoming important both in theoretical and empirical work. While the literature has mainly focused its attention on the intensity of such risk attitudes (e.g. the concepts of absolute prudence and absolute temperance), I consider here an alternative approach related to the direction of these attitudes (i.e. the sign of the successive derivatives of the utility function).     

Quadratic minimization with portfolio and intertemporal wealth constraints

We address a problem of stochastic optimal control motivated by portfolio optimization in mathematical finance, the goal of which is to minimize the expected value of a general quadratic loss function of the wealth at close of trade when there is a specified convex constraint on the portfolio, together with a specified almost-sure lower-bound on intertemporal wealth over the full trading interval. A precursor to the present work, by Heunis (Ann Financ 11:243–282, 2015), addressed the simpler problem of minimizing a general quadratic loss function with a convex portfolio constraint and a stipulated almost-sure lower-bound on the wealth only at close of trade. In the parlance of optimal control the problem that we shall address here exhibits the combination of a control constraint (i.e. the portfolio constraint) together with an almost-sure intertemporal state constraint (on the wealth over the full trading interval). Optimal control problems with this combination of constraints are well known to be quite challenging even in the deterministic case, and of course become still more so when one deals with these same constraints in a stochastic setting. We nevertheless find that an ingenious variational approach of Rockafellar (Conjugate duality and optimization, CBMS-NSF series no. 16, SIAM, 1974), which played a key role in the precursor work noted above, is fully equal to the challenges posed by this problem, and leads naturally to an appropriate vector space of dual variables, together with a dual functional on the space of dual variables, such that the dual problem of maximizing the dual functional is guaranteed to have a solution (or Lagrange multiplier) when the problem constraints satisfy a simple and natural Slater condition. We then establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the optimality of a candidate wealth process in terms of the Lagrange multiplier, and use these conditions to construct an optimal portfolio.     

Erklärung der privaten Krankenversicherungsnachfrage anhand ökonomischer und psychologischer Einflussfaktoren

To be able to plan measures insales planning successfully, informations are necessary about the expected trend of demand in the future. In this respecttheoretical funded andempirical relevant correlations between exogenous influencing factors and the process of demand must be systematically explored. Consequently for the private health insurance aglobal model was developed, which is the basis for presenting exemplarily an approach of explanation for the health cost insurance. Via this approach theshort-term fluctuations in the trend of demand, which were noticed in the past, can be traced satisfactorily. In this context besideseconomical alsopsychological influences like attitudes and expectations must be explicitly integrated in the approach of explanation. Naturally also the effects ofsociopolitical events, which are relevant to demand, were included in the analysis, especially as the process of demand for private health insurance is substantially marked by sociopolitical legislation.     

Enhancement of value investing strategies based on financial statement variables: the German evidence

This paper examines the added-value of combining traditional valuation ratios with each other as well as with some financial statement variables in the German stock markets during the 2000–2015 period. The results show that combination pays off and, moreover, that the benefits of combination are greater in Germany than in most other developed stock markets. Particularly, we find strong evidence of the added-value of using Piotroski’s F-score as a supplementary selection criterion for value stocks as well as for low-accrual stocks. Our results show further that the F-score also boosts the efficacy of other valuation ratios besides the book-to-price ratio. In addition, the inclusion of F-score besides a relative value measure tends to increase the average market equity of portfolio firms. The decomposition of the full-sample-period performance into separate bull- and bear-period performance shows clearly that the better performance of F-score-boosted portfolios is mostly attributable to their outperformance during bearish periods, even though on average, they also generate higher bull-period returns than the comparable value portfolios formed without F-score. The use of F-score as a supplementary criterion also increases the proportion of stocks that earn above-market-average returns during the subsequent holding period. For the first time in the financial literature, we also document a strong relationship between high F-score stocks and momentum stocks.     

The efficiency of IPO issuing mechanisms and market conditions: evidence in China

This study conducts a comparison analysis on the efficiency of bookbuilding and secondary market proportional offering (hereafter, SMP offering) in the China stock market. SMP offering as described in this paper is not a follow-on offering, but an initial offering applicable to investors in the secondary market. Specifically, as a unique type of fixed price offering, SMP offering only allows the existing investors who are holding shares (of any listed firms) in the secondary market to subscribe to IPO shares. The amount of IPO shares available to be subscribed by the existing investors is proportional to market value of shares held by them in the secondary market. We find some interesting evidence showing that, compared with bookbuilding, SMP offering is more efficient for pricing IPOs, particularly, in a volatile market. SMP offering leads to lower underpricing and lower cross-sectional variation of short-run returns of IPOs. Also, SMP offering is better able to counteract adverse market conditions in the form of low market return and/or high market volatility. Our results are robust to various alternative tests, e.g., the Heckman (Econometrica 47:153–161, 1979) two-stage procedure and an out-of-sample test, after controlling for the problem of endogeneity and for the influence of the exchange of listing, respectively.