Relative Guarantees

Many real-world financial contracts have some sort of minimum rate of return guarantee included. One class of these guarantees is so-called relative guarantees, i.e., guarantees where the minimum guaranteed rate of return is given as a function of the stochastic return on a reference portfolio. These guarantees are the topic of this paper. We analyse a wide range of different functional specifications for the minimum guaranteed rate of return, hereunder both so-called maturity and multi-period guarantees. Several closed form solutions are presented.     

Wage and Price Inflation in Poland in the Period of Transition: The Cointegration Analysis

The paper focuses on the long run relationships between wages, prices and labour productivity in the Polish economy by applying recent developments in the field of multivariate cointegration analysis. We followed modeling strategy which is suggested by Greenslade et al. (1999) and present all stages of the analysis which leads to the fully economically identified system of equations representing long run relationships. The investigation is based on the quarterly data from 1992.1 to 1999.2 which covers the period of transition of the Polish economy from the centrally planned system towards the market one. Basing on the empirical results we can argue that wages (costs) were one of the main forces driving inflation in Poland during that period. Also labor productivity proved to be stimulated by the increase of the real wages. On the other hand the hypothesis concerning the relationship between wages and unemployment was rejected by the data.     

Tax Base and Crowding‐in Effects of Balanced Budget Fiscal Policy

A dynamic general equilibrium business cycle model is constructed with staggered price adjustment, monopolistic wage setting and distortionary taxation. The government purchases goods, runs an unemployment benefit system and balances its budget through a proportional tax on labour income. A temporary tax‐financed increase in government expenditures can lower the tax rate through a demand‐induced widening of the tax base. It is shown analytically that this allows private consumption to rise, under realistic conditions, despite the negative wealth effect of increased fiscal spending.     

Optimal failure rates and penalty-bonus policies in the offshore petroleum sector

We characterize optimal time profiles of risk-reducing expenditures and wreck probabilities for petroleum platforms. The input to our analysis is the development of wreck cost, direct and imputed. Particular attention is paid to the question of how private companies deviating from socially optimal standards may be induced to comply with such standards by means of a) a time-variant penalty, b) a no-wreck bonus and c) a time-invariant penalty.     

The Structural Relation Between Mortgage and Market Interest Rates

This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between primary and secondary mortgage markets and the short-term and long-term market interest rates. Using a series of monthly data on fixed rate mortgage rates and GNMA rates, we explore the dependence and speed of adjustment in these primary and secondary mortgage rates to each other as well as to the long and short-term government rates. The results indicate that residential mortgage rates in general, appear to follow the long-term rate and are not very sensitive to movements in the short-term interest rate.     

QUADRATIC TERM STRUCTURE MODELS FOR RISK-FREE AND DEFAULTABLE RATES

In this paper, quadratic term structure models (QTSMs) are analyzed and characterized in a general Markovian setting. The primary motivation for this work is to find a useful extension of the traditional QTSM, which is based on an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) state process, while maintaining the analytical tractability of the model. To accomplish this, the class of quadratic processes, consisting of those Markov state processes that yield QTSM, is introduced. The main result states that OU processes are the only conservative quadratic processes. In general, however, a quadratic potential can be added to allow QTSMs to model default risk. It is further shown that the exponent functions that are inherent in the definition of the quadratic property can be determined by a system of Riccati equations with a unique admissible parameter set. The implications of these results for modeling the term structure of risk-free and defaultable rates are discussed.     

Elicitation using multiple price list formats

We examine the properties of a popular method for eliciting choices and values from experimental subjects, the multiple price list format. The main advantage of this format is that it is relatively transparent to subjects and provides simple incentives for truthful revelation. The main disadvantages are that it only elicits interval responses, and could be susceptible to framing effects. We consider extensions to address and evaluate these concerns. We conclude that although there are framing effects, they can be controlled for with a design that allows for them. We also find that the elicitation of risk attitudes is sensitive to procedures, subject pools, and the format of the multiple price list table, but that the qualitative findings that participants are generally risk averse is robust. The elicitation of discount rates appear less sensitive to details of the experimental design. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification C9, D81, D91 An erratum to this article is available at .     

Sterilization of short-term capital inflows—through lower interest rates?

Reductions in international interest rates are a major cause of capital flows to emerging economies. Increases in domestic interest rates are a frequent policy response to the resulting price increases. This is often unsuccessful. The paper suggests a theoretical explanation based on distinctive features of emerging financial markets, including imperfect asset substitutability and imperfect capital mobility for some sectors of the economy. It concludes that the appropriate policy response to capital inflows may be lower interest rates.     

汇率决定理论的发展与前沿述评

汇率决定问题是国际金融领域的一个重要命题,其间得到不断地丰富和发展。本文对汇率决定理论的发展脉络、内容、前沿作系统性地概述,并作出精要地评判。文章指出汇率行为的复杂性将是汇率决定理论研究的一个方向,非线性分析工具将成为汇率行为研究的主要手段。     

Evidence on the existence of speculative bubbles in farmland prices

We conduct tests for the contribution of speculative bubbles to farmland prices. These tests are carried out under the hypothesis that farmland investors rationally form expectations. The outcome of tests reported here allows us to infer whether farmland prices are determined by market fundamentals-discounted returns from the highest economic land use-or whether rumors about farmland price movements are self-fulfilling. The tests are stationarity and cointegration tests relating farmland prices to rents. The tests are carried out using data from three farm production regions-the Corn Belt, the Northern Plains, and the Lake States. In each region, we find little evidence to reject the hypothesis that market fundamentals determine farmland prices.