Some Tests of APT Mispricing Using Mimicking Portfolios

Cross-sectional and time-series tests using mimicking portfolios are used to assess the exactness of the APT with(out) a residual market factor. The first factor seems to be sufficient to span the efficient set, whether the model is estimated using (un)conditional variance-covariance matrices that are (un)adjusted for nonsynchronous trading. Although the conditional standard deviations of the mimicking portfolios significantly explain the time-variability of security volatilities, the residuals of the mean equation still exhibit heteroskedasticity. Similar results are obtained for portfolios of CAPM-betaranked securities, and for randomly selected individual securities.     

Risk Aversion, Intergenerational Equity and Climate Change

The paper investigates a climate-economy model with an iso-elastic welfare function in which one parameter measures relative risk-aversion and a distinct parameter measures resistance to intertemporal substitution.We show both theoretically and numerically that climate policy responds differently to variations in the two parameters. In particular, we show that higher but lower leads to increase emissions control. We also argue that climate-economy models based on intertemporal expected utility maximization, i.e. models where = , may misinterpret the sensitivity of the climate policy to risk-aversion.     

Modified efficient importance sampling for partially non‐Gaussian state space models

The construction of an importance density for partially non‐Gaussian state space models is crucial when simulation methods are used for likelihood evaluation, signal extraction, and forecasting. The method of efficient importance sampling is successful in this respect, but we show that it can be implemented in a computationally more efficient manner using standard Kalman filter and smoothing methods. Efficient importance sampling is generally applicable for a wide range of models, but it is typically a custom‐built procedure. For the class of partially non‐Gaussian state space models, we present a general method for efficient importance sampling. Our novel method makes the efficient importance sampling methodology more accessible because it does not require the computation of a (possibly) complicated density kernel that needs to be tracked for each time period. The new method is illustrated for a stochastic volatility model with a Student's t distribution.     

Host-site institutions,regional production linkages and technological upgrading: a study of automotive firms in vietnam

Using technological capabilities as embodied in machinery, organization, processes and products, this study examines the links with host-site institutions and regional production linkages. The statistical results show no relationship between these variables. In-depth interviews complement the quantitative findings. Overall, the result shows that the government’s localization efforts failed because too many joint-venture assemblers were approved in the 1990s when the domestic market was small. The lack of economies of scale also affected the growth of national suppliers. Hence, national producers are confined to low value added segments and lack the quality to compete in export markets.     

A Systematic Review on the Effects of Personalized Price Promotions for Food Products

Recent decades have witnessed the increasing adoption of personalized price promotion (PPP) at grocery stores. Despite the growing body of research debating whether PPP is more effective than untargeted price promotions, there is no literature synthesizing the relevant evidence on food products. Therefore, we conduct a systematic review to examine empirical findings on the effects of PPP targeting food products. Outcomes of 12 identified studies demonstrate larger sales and profit boosting effects of PPP than its non-personalized counterparts. Meanwhile, the results on how this approach influences consumer behavior are mixed. The effectiveness of PPP varies among different targeting strategies (e.g. reward or cross-selling) and information collection methods (e.g. using within- or across-chain data). The findings of this review have important managerial implications for the future evaluation and application of PPP as well as imply potential directions of further research on this topic.     

The Role of Financial Ratios in the Variance of Stock Trading Volume in Emerging Stock Markets

The study used quarterly panel data of 6 years from 2010 to 2015 of all companies listed on both Vietnamese stock markets including the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange and Ha Noi Stock Exchange, and on three leading industries consisting of insurance-banking, foodstuff, and real estate to explore the relationship among four key financial ratios and stock trading volume. Two models, fixed effects model (FEM) and random effects model (REM), with robust standard errors, were applied for this study. The key findings showed that earnings before tax on sales, debt on owner’s equity, and owner’s equity on total assets significantly influenced trading volume.     

Optimal surveillance against foot‐and‐mouth disease: the case of bulk milk testing in Australia

Previous foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks and simulation‐based analyses suggest substantial payoffs from detecting an incursion early. However, no economic measures for early detection have been analysed in an optimising framework. We investigate the use of bulk milk testing (BMT) for active surveillance against an FMD incursion in Australia. We find that BMT can be justified, but only when the FMD entry probability is sufficiently high or the cost of BMT is low. However, BMT is well suited for post‐outbreak surveillance, to shorten the length of time and size of an epidemic and to facilitate an earlier return to market.     

Export diversification and real exchange rate in emerging Latin America and Asia: A South–North vs. South-South decomposition

The present paper examines the directional causality between export diversification and real exchange rate in the middle-income countries of Asia and Latin America over the period from 1995 to 2013. Additionally, we investigate asymmetries in the causality issue by examining the direction across trading partners.

Our empirical results show that there is a two-way causality between the two variables when we look at the sample as a whole. A causal link running from the real exchange rate to export diversification is consistent with the standard literature but it is not systematic at all. The reverse causation is very appealing and challenges the standard argument on exchange rate determination. When the causality issue is investigated by treating export markets differently, our findings at the aggregate level are confirmed in exports destined for the advanced countries. The analysis for ‘South-South’ trade only shows a unidirectional link from the real exchange rate to changes in export diversification. The same tests performed at the individual countries level reveal a heterogeneous causality across trading partners.     

Benchmark Invariancy,Seasonality and APM-Free Portfolio Performance Measures

The Jobson-Korkie (1981) Z score and the positive period weighting (PPW) score of Grinblatt and Titman (1989) are applied to various benchmarks of market and mimicking portfolios to study the benchmark invariancy problem. Significantly different portfolio performance inferences are found for a sample of 146 equity mutual funds depending on the mean-variance efficiency of the portfolio benchmarks (mimicking portfolios versus market indices). Portfolio performance inferences are affected significantly by the number of factors, nonsynchronous trading adjustment, and the sizes of the firms used for factor extraction. The returns of the portfolio benchmarks exhibit significant monthly seasonalities, which, in turn, significantly influence mutual fund performance inferences.