Mortgage-Backed Futures and Options

This paper empirically tests valuation models for the mortgage-backed futures-options contracts that traded on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) from June of 1989 until March of 1992. A simple contingent-claim model is shown to produce call option values on mortgage-backed futures (MBF) contracts that are unbiased estimates of actual futures-options prices. The ability of the MBF contract to hedge positions in current coupon Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) securities relative to the effectiveness of cross-hedging GNMA positions with T-note and T-bond futures contracts is also examined.     

Quality Management Systems Certification: Research Note

Although International Quality Standards 9000 certification is one of the most popular quality assurance systems in the world, its contribution to a firm's value is still a controversial issue. This project re-examines this issue by using stock market reactions to the announcements of the award of certification made by a sample of Hong Kong listed companies, as a proxy for its contribution to a firm's value. The results suggest that on average certification increased a firm's value. However, most of this value increase was incorporated into stock prices before formal announcements were published in newspapers. In addition, the contribution of certification to value was greater in smaller firms than in larger ones. This can be attributed to fewer stock traders and professional analysts following smaller firms.     

中小企业板的推出对我国创业投资的影响

2004年5月，中小企业板在深交所获准设立，一时间，围绕中小企业板对创业投资运作影响的讨论空前热烈。笔者认为，要研究中小企业板对创业投资的影响，就必须从创业板和创业投资的内在机理出发，来研究中小企业板的制度安排是否能保证二者形成良性互动，关键的就是要研究中小企业板在制度上离一个成熟的创业板有多远。目前，学者和业内人士普遍对中小企业板的作用不甚乐观，而近一年来的实践也似乎验证了这一观点，因此，加强中小企业板的制度建设，使之尽快过渡为创业板，已经成了管理者的当务之急。     

Dynamics of the federal funds target rate: a nonstationary discrete choice approach

We apply a discrete choice approach to model the empirical behaviour of the Federal Reserve in changing the federal funds target rate, the benchmark of short‐term market interest rates in the US. Our methods allow the explanatory variables to be nonstationary as well as stationary. This feature is particularly useful in the present application as many economic fundamentals that are monitored by the Fed and are believed to affect decisions to adjust interest rate targets display some nonstationarity over time. The chosen model successfully predicts the majority of the target rate changes during the time period considered (1994–2001) and helps to explain strings of similar intervention decisions by the Fed. Based on the model‐implied optimal interest rate, our findings suggest that there is a lag in the Fed's reaction to economic shocks during this period. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A theory of global strategic alliances: The case of the global auto industry

The theory articulated in this paper suggests that the desire to reduce demand and competitive uncertainty are two separate, important motives for alliance formation. Taking this as a starting point, we predict the configuration of horizontal alliances that we might expect to observe within an industry when firms experience these uncertainties to different degrees. An empirical test of this theory using data from the global auto industry yields results consistent with the view (1) that alliances are a device for reducing both the uncertainties that arise from unpredictable demand conditions and those that arise from competitive interdependence, and (2) that variation of demand uncertainty and competitive uncertainty across firms explains differentials in both the intensity and structure of their horizontal alliance activity.     

Game theoretic derivations of competitive strategies in conjoint analysis

While conjoint analysis has been applied in a wide variety of different contexts in Marketing, most applications fail to explicitly consider retaliatory reactions from competitors. In this paper, a methodological extension is developed for conjoint analysis by explicitly modeling competition in a game theoretic context. The Nash equilibrium concept is employed to model competitive reactions to produce design, and its implications for reactive product strategies are discussed. The optimal product design problem for each firm is formulated as a nonlinear integer programming problem, which is solved via a specialized branch and bound method combined with a heuristic. In order to compute a Nash equilibrium, a sequential iterative procedure is proposed. The proposed procedure is illustrated under several scenarios of competition using previously published conjoint data.This research has been supported by the Henry Rutgers Research Fellowship, Rutgers University.     

Price-volume relation in stocks: A multiple time series analysis on the Singapore market

We examine the price-volume relation in stocks using the multiple time series approach due to Tiao and Box (1981). This approach has the advantage of treating price and volume jointly and symmetrically (without enforcing the roles of input and output). It is free of the simultaneity bias in regression analysis and the unidirectional dynamics imposed by transfer function models. Empirical results show that there is implicit positive correlation between price and volume through their residuals. However, the results for the explicit lead and lag relations are mixed. The technical analysts' adage that volume often leads the trend of price is not supported. Nonetheless, the implicit relationship between price and volume confirms the usefulness of incorporating volume data to forecast future return. Our analysis shows that the multiple time series models outperform the univariate models in post-sample forecasts.     

循环经济发展中的障碍及对策思考

近几年我国循环经济的发展有了较多的实践,也总结出了很多宝贵的经验,但目前仍然存在一些制约循环经济发展的障碍性因素.文章剖析了我国循环经济发展中面对的主要障碍,并提出了几点针对性的建议,以期更好地推进循环经济的发展.     

企业信息化过程中知识转移能力研究

考虑到企业信息化建设过程中知识转移的能力具有灰色性和模糊性的特点,传统的分析方法具有很大的局限性。本文采用基于信息熵权值的多层次灰色评价理论,对信息化过程中知识转移的能力的多级指标体系进行综合评判,为企业提供决策以及改进的依据,最后给出运用该方法的一个实例。该方法具有较强的实际应用价值。     

Market efficiency and cointegration: Some evidence in Pacific-Basin black exchange markets

This paper investigates the efficiency of the black exchange markets in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. The study applies unit root and cointegration tests to examine black exchange market efficiency of Pacific-Basin countries. The generating process of black exchange rates appears to be a random walk. This is consistent with Gupta (1981) and other foreign exchange rate unit root test studies. Johansen cointegration tests are performed for these black exchange markets together with Japan and Singapore. The results suggest that there is at least one unit root among the black market exchange rates. Hence, black exchange markets are not collectively efficient.