S-curve dynamics of trade between Sweden and her trading partners

The S-curve sums up the dynamic relationship between terms of trade and trade balance. This pattern has received weak support in some developed and less developed countries when aggregate trade data are used. Empirical regularities based on aggregate trade data can be biased since aggregation can potentially suppress some of the patterns observed in trade at the bilateral level. This paper overcomes this problem by employing bilateral trade data from Sweden and finds that the S-curve is invariant to this level of disaggregation. Indeed, Sweden has a bilateral S-curve with 12 out of 17 cases examined for the 1980Q1–2005Q1 period.     

The 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Mechanism Design Theory

This paper provides an overview of mechanism design theory, and explains the roles played by Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson in the development of this field.     

The Second Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing

This paper presents a resolution of the paradox proposed by the example of an economy with complette markets and a multiplicityof martingale measures constructed by Artzner and Heath (1995). The resolution lies in noting that completeness is with respect to a topology on the space of cash flows and is connected with uniqueness of the price functional in the topological dual space. Uniqueness may be lost outside the dual and this is what occurs in the counterexample of Artzner and Heath.     

Understanding New Religion-Compliant Product Adoption (NRCPA) in Islamic Markets

This study examines the relationships between religious beliefs, brand personality, and new religion-compliant product adoption (NRCPA) in Islamic markets. Findings confirm that religious consumers tend to behave in accordance with a society or group that follows the same beliefs, and that these consumers’ behavior and lifestyle are influenced by similar religious groups and social relationships. In addition, the more religious the consumer, the more likely they will adopt or favour/disfavour a new product in accordance with his/her religious beliefs. Finally, the three constructs–relative advantages, compatibility and complexity–are found to partially mediate the influential relationship between religious beliefs and new religion-compliant product adoption. International firms that target Muslim markets, with an aim to profit and fit in these markets, must take into account the Islamic values, standards and guidelines.     

FINANCIAL GLOBALISATION: PAST AND PRESENT

This article compares and contrasts the two modern periods of financial globalisation, approximately a century apart. The focal point of the first period was around the turn of the twentieth century, while that of the second was around the turn of the twenty‐first century. Financial globalisation in the latter era was far deeper and there was a remarkable across‐the‐board transformation of the global financial system. An interesting twenty‐first‐century phenomenon is the recent change in direction of capital flows: that is, sizeable sums of capital flowing from non‐industrial countries to advanced industrial countries.     

Option overlay strategies

Option overlays on a rebalanced portfolio are designed. Inputs to the design problem are the physical and risk neutral probabilities at the option maturity. They are estimated from time series and option data, respectively. The objective for the design is the bid price of a two price economy modelled as a distorted expectation. The design is monotone increasing in the underlier with a delta constraint. The option positioning is implemented on the S&P 500 index, supposedly rebalanced every 21 days with option positions taken 10 days prior to a rebalance date with a maturity near two months. Option overlays are seen to raise performance measures and reduce drawdowns.     

Momentum and reversion in risk neutral martingale probabilities

A time homogeneous, purely discontinuous, parsimonous Markov martingale model is proposed for the risk neutral dynamics of equity forward prices. Transition probabilities are in the variance gamma class with spot dependent parameters. Markov chain approximations give access to option prices. The model is estimated on option prices across strike and maturity for five days at a time. Properties of the estimated processes are described via an analysis of return quantiles, momentum functions that measure the response of tail probabilities to such moves. Momentum and reversion are also addressed via the construction of reverse conditional expectations. Term structures for the moments of marginal distributions support a decay in skewness and excess kurtosis with maturity at rates slower than those implied by Lévy processes. Out of sample performance is additionally reported. It is observed that risk neutral dynamics by and large reflect the presence of momentum in numerous probabilities. However, there is some reversion in the upper quantiles of risk neutral return distributions.     

The Asian economy: current state of play and future prospects

The global financial crisis, the so-called great world recession and recovery have had a serious impact on the Asian and global economies. Together, they managed to engender significant transformation in the contours of both the Asian and global economies. For instance, Asian economies presently depend less on markets in the advanced industrial economies and, due to their enlarging markets, can and did make a substantive contribution to the global recovery. They spearheaded the economic recovery from the global financial crisis. The post-crisis Asian economy is the third pole of the global economy. Significantly, the emerging market economies of Asia did not magnify the external shock this time and performed more like the advanced industrial economies. After a robust recovery in 2010, growth became somewhat subdued in 2011. Projections show that economic performance in the region in 2012 will not be very different from that in 2011 (see WB [World Bank] 2012).     

S-Curve at the Commodity Level: Evidence from US-India Trade

The short-run response of the trade balance to changes in the terms of trade or the real exchange rate comes under the heading of the “J-Curve” or the “S-Curve.” While the J-Curve is mostly investigated through regression analysis, the S-Curve is based on the cross-correlation function between the terms of trade and the trade balance. Previous research has shown that in a country where support for any of the two curves is weak, disaggregation of the trade data helps discover more evidence of either curve. This article adds to the literature by considering the experience of India. We demonstrate that once the trade data between India and the United States is disaggregated by commodity, there is evidence of the S-curve in most industries that trade between the two countries. Out of total of 27 industries that constitute about 70% of trade, there are 15 that support the S-Curve.