Valuation of asset leasing contracts

This paper describes the relation among a variety of asset leasing contracts, including: (1) cancellable operating leases; (2) leases which grant the lesse an option to extend the life of the lease; (3) leases that grant the lessee an option to purchase the leased asset at a fixed price at the maturity date of the lease; (4) leases that grant the lessee the right to purchase the leased asset at its ‘fair market value’ at the maturity date of the lease; (5) leases that grant an option to the lessee to purchase the leased asset at a prespecified price anytime during the life of the lease; (6) leases that require the lessee to purchase the leased asset at a fixed price at the maturity date of the lease; and (7) leases that contain non-cancellation provisions. The paper uses a compound option pricing framework to develop a general model for valuing (or evaluating) each of the types of leasing contracts. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effect of the various elements of a leasing contract — including cancellation risk and residual value risk — on equilibrium rental payments.     

A Note on Deductible Insurance and Production

This paper examines the optimal production decision of a firm facing revenue risk. We show that the purchase of actuarially fair deductible insurance unambiguously induces the firm to produce more if the firm is not only risk averse but also prudent. If the firm's perferences satisfy constant absolute risk aversion, buying actuarially unfair deductible insurance unambiguously enhances production should the positive loading factor be sufficiently small. When there are moral hazard problems in that the firm's output cannot be contracted upon, we show that the purchase of actuarially fair deductible insurance unambiguously induces the firm to produce more if the firm's utility function is quadratic.     

American option pricing under the double Heston model based on asymptotic expansion

This paper focuses on pricing American put options under the double Heston model proposed by Christoffersen et al. By introducing an explicit exercise rule, we obtain the asymptotic expansion of the solution to the partial differential equation for pricing American put options. We calculate American option price by the sum of the European option price and the early exercise premium. The early exercise premium is calculated by the difference between the American and European option prices based on asymptotic expansions. The European option price is obtained by the efficient COS method. Based on the obtained American option price, the double Heston model is calibrated by minimizing the distance between model and market prices, which yields an optimization problem that is solved by a differential evolution algorithm combined with the Matlab function fmincon.m. Numerical results show that the pricing approach is fast and accurate. Empirical results show that the double Heston model has better performance in pricing short-maturity American put options and capturing the volatility term structure of American put options than the Heston model.     

The Value of Embedded Real Options: Evidence from Consumer Automobile Lease Contracts

Under the common assumption of constant interest rates, we show that penalties for early termination of a lease are often structured in such a way that the cancellation option embedded in consumer automotive leases has little value. Furthermore, our estimates drawn from a sample of three popular car models over 1990 to 2000 indicate that the stand‐alone value of the lease‐end purchase option is, on average, about 16% of the market value of underlying used vehicles, or about $1,462 per contract. Finally, we examine the sensitivity of our option value estimates to model parameters and default risk.     

Optimal incentive contract in continuous time with different behavior relationships between agents

Dynamic contracts with multiple agents is a classical decentralized decision-making problem with asymmetric information, it is usually discussed according to moral hazard and the behavioral relationship between agents. To do so, in this paper, according to behavior relationships between agents, we analyze continuous time optimal contracting in principal multi-agent moral hazard settings. According to stochastic optimal control theory, the optimal contract of the generalized principal-agent dynamic problem is given, the optimal behavior selection and incentive mechanism of agents are analyzed. The result shows that, in the two-agent model, the incentive effect of cooperative relationship is greater than that of competitive relationship; when they are in a cooperative relationship, with the more influential agent receiving higher pay; under multi-agent model, an increase in the number of agents reduces effort and rewards, this indicates that the team size has strict boundaries. The research conclusions can be applied to solve two kinds of principal-agent problems that the principal needs to motivate the agent to compete or cooperate in the actual social production and life.     

Implementing high‐powered contracts to motivate intertemporal effort supply

We characterize the optimal contract between a principal and a risk‐neutral, wealth‐constrained agent when an adverse selection problem follows a moral hazard problem. The optimal contract in this setting often is more steeply sloped for the largest output levels than is the optimal contract in either the standard moral hazard setting or the standard adverse selection setting. The large incremental rewards for exceptional performance motivate the agent to deliver substantial effort both before and after he acquires privileged information about the production environment.     

Der Einfluss einer staatlichen Grundsicherung auf die Versicherungsnachfrage bei asymmetrischer Informationsverteilung

In this article, we develop a model framework in which the influence of a state assistance on insurance demand in an insurance market with imperfect information can be examined. It turned out that a state subsidy of very low level has no influence on the insurance demand at all. If the state assistance is adequately high, the individuals will prefer government assistance to market insurance. In case of adverse selection, a state assistance can have the consequence that the good risks decide not to buy any insurance while the bad risks purchase full insurance cover. The state assistance can therefore contribute to solve the problem of adverse selection. In case of moral hazard, a surprising result has been found out. The state assistance can bring the measures of loss minimizing to a standstill before the insurance can do it. The state subsidy amplifies the moral hazard behaviour and is therefore not a suitable instrument to solve problems with moral hazard.     

Valuing long-term leases: The option to redevelop

Long-term leases on property are popular in many jurisdictions, both with private vendors and with local governments who want to retain future control over land use. A puzzling issue for vendors and purchasers has been how to value these leased properties relative to fee-simple properties. Simple present-value models suggest that there should be little difference between the price of fee-simple land and the price of long-term leases. Transaction prices in Canada on 80-year to 100-year residential leases, however, are 20 percent to 40 percent less than comparable fee-simple properties. We outline a financial model for valuing leased properties. The value of the option to upgrade or redevelop is considered. We show that the large part of the discount of leased properties from fee-simple properties can be explained by this option to redevelop.     

Middlemen: the good,the bad,and the ugly

We examine the role of a middleman as an expert in markets. A seller's effort determines the quality of the good. Buyers observe neither the seller's effort nor the good's quality. A middleman, after observing a signal about the good's quality, decides whether to purchase it and then to sell it. We show that the presence of a middleman may either reduce or exacerbate the seller's moral hazard problem. We also consider a model with multiple middlemen. We find that the seller's effort is minimized if either the middleman's signal is perfect or the number of middlemen is large.     

Are bank shareholders enemies of regulators or a potential source of market discipline?

In moral hazard models, bank shareholders have incentives to transfer wealth from the deposit insurer – that is, maximize put option value – by pursuing riskier strategies. For safe banks with large charter value, however, the risk-taking incentive is outweighed by the possibility of losing charter value. Focusing on the relationship between Tobin’s q and an ex ante measure of the failure probability, this paper develops a semi-parametric model for estimating the critical level of bank risk at which put option value starts outweighing charter value. From these estimates, we infer the prevalence of moral hazard. Examining publicly held bank holding companies (BHC) during the tumultuous 1986–1992 period, we find that shareholders’ risk-taking incentives were confined to a small fraction of highly risky institutions. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the inflection point at which banks begin to tilt in favor of moral hazard increased substantially in 1993–2005. These findings are encouraging to bank regulators and legislators because they indicate that tighter capital rules and more rigorous supervision introduced by several legislative initiatives in the 1990s have helped squeeze a lot of the moral hazard incentives out of the banking system.     

Ripoffs,Lemons, and Reputation Formation in Agency Relationships: A Laboratory Market Study

This paper examines the effect of the moral hazard problem in an agency relationship where the principal cannot observe the level of service provided by the agent. Using data from laboratory markets, we demonstrate that the presence of moral hazard leads to shirking by agents. However, this “lemons” phenomenon occurs only about one-half of the time. While there is evidence of reputation effects in these markets, seemingly reputable agents are often able to use opportunities for false advertising to their advantage and “ripoff” principals.     

Endogenous Financial Constraint and Investment‐Cash‐Flow Sensitivity

This paper studies a dynamic investment model with moral hazard. The moral hazard problem implies an endogenous financial constraint on investment that makes the firm's investment sensitive to cash flows. I show that the production technology and the severity of the moral hazard problem substantially affect the dependence of the investment‐cash‐flow sensitivity on the financial constraint. Specifically, if the production technology exhibits almost constant returns to scale in capital or the moral hazard problem is relatively severe, the dependence is negative. Otherwise, the pattern is reversed to some extent. Moreover, the calibrated benchmark model can quantitatively account for the negative dependence of investment and Tobin's Q on size and age observed in the data.     

A theory of contractual provisions in leasing

We develop a non-tax rationale for leasing in a double-sided asymmetric information setting, and analyze how various contractual provisions in leasing contracts arise in equilibrium. In our model, a manufacturer of capital goods has private information about their quality; entrepreneurs (users of these capital goods) come to learn this quality only by using them over a period of time. Each unit of the capital goods requires a certain level of maintenance in each period. Entrepreneurs differ in their cost of providing this maintenance; this maintenance cost is information private to each entrepreneur. Leasing emerges as an equilibrium solution to this double-sided asymmetric information problem. Various contractual provisions in leasing contracts (e.g., short-term versus long-term leases with non-cancellation provisions, option to buy at lease termination, and service leases) also emerge as equilibrium solutions under alternative settings. Leases with metering provisions emerge in equilibrium when, in addition to the maintenance cost, entrepreneurs differ in other dimensions, such as their intensity of usage of the capital good. Our model has implications for the lease-versus-sell decision, the situations under which various leasing contract provisions will be used, and for the relative magnitudes of sales prices and leasing costs (for leases with different contractual provisions).     

Speculative Futures Trading under Mean Reversion

This paper studies the problem of trading futures with transaction costs when the underlying spot price is mean-reverting. Specifically, we model the spot dynamics by the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck, Cox–Ingersoll–Ross, or exponential Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model. The futures term structure is derived and its connection to futures price dynamics is examined. For each futures contract, we describe the evolution of the roll yield, and compute explicitly the expected roll yield. For the futures trading problem, we incorporate the investor’s timing option to enter or exit the market, as well as a chooser option to long or short a futures upon entry. This leads us to formulate and solve the corresponding optimal double stopping problems to determine the optimal trading strategies. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the optimal entry and exit boundaries under different models. We find that the option to choose between a long or short position induces the investor to delay market entry, as compared to the case where the investor pre-commits to go either long or short.     

基于多层级委托代理的金融机构内部道德风险模型

道德风险问题是我国金融业普遍存在的问题,许多金融案件的发生无不与金融从业人员的职业道德水平有关。而目前金融系统实行的多层级委托代理经营管理模式存在制度缺陷和道德风险隐患。本文通过建立三方两阶段的博弈模型,对我国金融业中多层级委托-代理存在的道德风险给出实证分析,提出具有实践意义的建议。     

Evergreening in banking

In the dynamic model of banking, a bank's option to hide its loan losses by rolling over non-performing loans is shown to worsen moral hazard. Contrary to the classic theory, moral hazard may arise even when a bank cannot seek a correlated risk for its loans. The loans seem to be performing and the bank makes a profit although it is de facto insolvent. When the bank's balance sheet includes hidden non-performing loans, the bank may optimally shrink lending or gamble for resurrection by growing aggressively. To eliminate this type of moral hazard, which is broadly consistent with evidence from emerging economies, a few regulatory implications are suggested.     

基于道德风险视角的资本类逆周期监管工具的比较分析

2007—2009年的全球金融风暴使监管者最终认识到宏观审慎管理的重要性,其主要目的是缓解顺周期问题。然而,我们认为宏观审慎管理可以兼顾"大而不能倒"的金融机构引发的道德风险问题。本文对这一问题做了初步性的探索,结论为:时间可变的资本充足率不能很好地解决"大而不能倒"的金融机构所面临的道德风险问题;或有资本可以部分解决金融机构的道德风险问题;救助保险基金能够很好地解决道德风险问题。     

An economy with personal currency: theory and experimental evidence

Is personal currency issued by participants sufficient to operate an economy efficiently, with no outside or government money? Sahi and Yao (in J Math Econ, 1989) and Sorin (in J Econ Theory, 1996) constructed a strategic market game to prove that this is possible. We conduct an experimental game in which each agent issues his/her personal IOUs, and a costless efficient clearinghouse adjusts the exchange rates among them so the markets always clear. The results suggest that if the information system and clearing are so good as to preclude moral hazard, any form of information asymmetry, and need for trust, the economy operates efficiently at any price level without government money. These conditions cannot reasonably be expected to hold in natural settings. In a second set of treatments when agents have the option of not delivering on their promises, a high enough penalty for non-delivery is necessary to ensure an efficient market; a lower penalty leads to inefficient, even collapsing, markets due to moral hazard.     

The Leasing Puzzle

Prevailing theories in finance and economics suggest that leases and debt are substitutes; an increase in one should led to a compensating decrease in the other. In particular, there are three views on the magnitude of the substitution coefficient. Standard finance theory treats cash flows from lease obligations as equivalent to debt cash flows, thus describing the tradeoff between debt and leases as one-to-one. Others are willing to use a tradeoff of leases for debt which is less than, but close to, one. The rationale for a dollar of leases using less of debt capacity than a dollar of debt obligation is based upon the differences in the terms and nature of lease and debt contracts. Finally, there are some who argue that since leased assets may be firm-specific, the risk of moral hazard may be great, resulting in a tradeoff of greater than one-to-one; that is, a dollar of a lease obligation uses more of debt capacity than a dollar of a debt obligation. A series of empirical tests are performed in this study on samples of approximately 600 firms, covering the years 1976 through 1981, with none of the three views supported by the results. Instead, the results indicate that leases and debt are complements; greater use of debt is associated with a greater use of leasing. This finding reappears consistently for each year, each definition of leverage ratios, and each approach to analysis. This complementary relationship persists even after refinements are made to the estimation technique.