Futures options with futures-style margining in the Gaussian models setting

This paper investigates the effects of the markung-to-market on futures and futures options. Closed form solutions for the pricung of these contracts are derived under the assumption that the forward rate follows a Gaussian model. Moreover, an upper bound of the error made by computing futures option prices under the contmuons marking-to-market instead of the discrete one is provided. Numerical comparisons suggest that the marking-to-market feature is highly affect by the model chosen. In the Ho and Lee framework discrete marking-to-market futures prices turned out to be slightly different from the continuous ones; whereas in the Vasicek model differences in prices become appreciable when the mean reversion is slow and the volatility is high.

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Valutazione di contratti futures e opzioni futures nell’ambito dei modelli Gaussiani

Riassunto In questo articolo si esaminano gli effetti di marking-to-market nella determinazione del prezzo di contratti futures e di opzioni futures. Le espressioni in forma chiusa dei prezzi di questi contratti sono determinate sotto l’ipotesi che l’intensità istantanea di interesse si evolva secondo nn modello Gaussiano. Tra i contratri futures e opzioni futures su tassi di interesse a breve trartati al LIFFE, dedichiamo la nostra analisi in particolare al caso di contratti su Eurolira. Questi contratti rappresentano infatti un fondamentale strumento per iltrading e l’hedging nel mercato Italiano dove i tassi di interesse a breve mostrano alti livelli di volatilità. Confronti unmerjci vengono foruiti nell’ambito del modello di Ho e Lee e di Vasicek. I risultati empirici suggeriscono che le differenze di prezzo nel caso discreto e continuo diventano apprezzabili nel modello di Vasicek quando laincan-veversion è bassa e la volatilità è alta.

     

ECONOMIES WITH PUBLIC PROJECTS: EFFICIENCY AND DECENTRALIZATION*

The article deals with the two fundamental theorems of welfare economics for production economies with a finite set of agents, infinitely many private goods, and a set of public projects. The problem of efficiency and decentralization is addressed under the following very general assumptions: (a) the commodity–price duality is endowed with a consistent locally convex topology; (b) the set of public projects is without any mathematical structure. Moreover, any agent is characterized by a nonordered preference relation depending on consumption goods and public projects. Approximate and exact welfare theorems are discussed throughout the article.     

What if Variable Annuity Policyholders With Guaranteed Lifelong Withdrawal Benefit Were Rational?

This article examines the lapse risk inherent to the guaranteed lifelong withdrawal benefit option embedded in a variable annuity product valuated from a pure derivatives perspective, that is, as a Bermudian option given to the policyholder. We assume rational behavior and quantify the potential impact of the lapse risk, defined as the difference between no lapse and optimal lapsing. We develop a sensitivity analysis that shows how the value of the product varies with the key parameters, and calculate the fair fee using Monte Carlo simulations. Empirical analyses are performed and numerical results are provided.     

Income Shifting in the Spanish Dual Income Tax*

Based on a model of behavioural response to taxes, and using the Taxpayers Panel from the Instituto de Estudios Fiscales for the period 1999–2009, we analyse whether the dual nature of the Spanish personal income tax (PIT), reinforced by the 2007 reform, has influenced taxpayers’ behaviour, causing them to convert part of their ‘general income’ (from labour, real estate or economic activities) into ‘savings income’ (from movable capital or capital gains). We also extend the analysis of income shifting and study whether Spanish taxpayers also responded to the different tax treatments given to the two types of savings income (from movable capital and capital gains) until 2007, transforming savings income from one type to the other. The results of our study demonstrate three facts. First, Spanish taxpayers did respond to the different tax rates, shifting income from the general base to different forms of savings, especially capital gains. The highest‐income individuals and the self‐employed and business owners are the groups where this behaviour was most marked. Second, the self‐employed and business owners also turned income from movable assets into capital gains, guided by their different tax rates. And third, we find signs of ‘anticipation’ and ‘learning’ effects caused by the 2007 tax reform. We believe that the results obtained will enrich the growing literature on income shifting.     

Immigrant-Native Wage Differentials and Immigration Reform

The US Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) increased the monitoring of illegal employment and fined employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Since these provisions tax immigrant wages, it might be expected that the immigrant-native wage gap would increase after IRCA. This hypothesis is explored by decomposing immigrant-native wage differentials before and after IRCA. It is found that (i) the immigrant-native wage gap increased; (ii) in each year most of this gap was due to individual and job characteristics; (iii) the change in the gap is due primarily to overvaluation of native characteristics and to a lesser extent to undervaluation of immigrant characteristics.     

Cheaper and More Haircuts After VAT Cut? Evidence from the Netherlands

We study the effect of the reduction in the VAT rate on hairdresser services from 17.5 to 6% in the Netherlands in January 2000. Following Kosonen (J Public Econ 131:87–100, 2015), we use differences-in-differences to estimate the effects of this reform, with beauty salons as the main control group. In our preferred specification, we find close to full pass-through of the VAT cut into lower prices. However, we find no statistically or economically significant effect on the volume of sales or employment.     

OLIGOPOLY AND COST SHARING IN ECONOMIES WITH PUBLIC GOODS

We study economies that involve both small and large traders as well as the choice of a public project. Within this framework, we establish two sufficient conditions under which the set of competitive allocations coincides with the core. Our first core equivalence result holds under the assumption that there is a countably infinite set of large traders similar to each other. The second result, independent of the number of large traders, requires the existence of a coalition of small traders with the same characteristics of the large traders. Finally, we show how the generalized Aubin approach to cooperation may dispense with both conditions.     

Modelling a sustainable requalification problem by analytic hierarchy process

Quality & Quantity - Decision problems are often characterized by a great number of alternative actions and by the complexity of relationships between factors involved in the process. This...