Dynamic supply chain modeling using a new fuzzy hybrid negotiation mechanism

The key part of dynamic supply chain management is negotiating with suppliers and with buyers. Coordination is essential for successful supply chain management. In order to model coordination among suppliers and buyers in a dynamic supply chain, this paper takes a step further and proposes a new fuzzy- logic-based hybrid negotiation mechanism. In most real-world negotiation situations, agents have a common interest to cooperate, but have conflicting interests over exactly how to cooperate. These situations involve restrictions and preferences that may be vaguely and partly defined. Therefore, this study takes the advantage of fuzzy logic and develops a hybrid negotiation-based mechanism, that combines both cooperative and competitive negotiations. Achieving effective coordination in a multi-agent system is non-trivial as no agent possesses the global view of the problem space. Moreover, the different strategies adopted by agents may produce conflicts. While agents coordinate with each other in the operations, they will negotiate about their strategies to reduce conflicts. The proposed fuzzy hybrid negotiation mechanism allows negotiation agents more flexibility and robustness in an automated negotiation system. The proposed mechanism not only helps sellers and buyers to explore various new choices and opportunities that the e-markets offer but also allows them to identify and analyze their resource constraints in a given schedule, and helps them to explore and exploit many alternatives for a better solution. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated through an illustrative example.     

Estimating Excess Sensitivity and Habit Persistence in Consumption Using Greenbook Forecasts

In this paper, we revisit the issue of excess sensitivity of consumption to income and address the weak instrument problem that is well documented in this literature. Using quarterly data for the US economy, we first highlight the weak instrument problem by showing that the use of conventional instruments tends to overestimate the share of rule-of-thumb consumers. To address this weak instrument problem, we propose a new instrument for endogenous disposable income growth in the consumption function, namely, the Greenbook forecast of real disposable income growth. We show that this instrument encompasses the information contained in the conventional set of instruments, and is a superior predictor of income growth. We find that using our proposed instrument ameliorates the weak instrument problem and provides a much smaller estimate for the rule-of-thumb consumers. We also extend our empirical framework to allow for habit persistence and provide an estimate for this important parameter of the consumption function. Finally, we use a time-varying specification of consumption function that allows for endogenous regressors, and document a decline in the share of rule-of-thumb consumers and a rise in the habit-persistence parameter in the US over our sample period.     

Box‐spread arbitrage efficiency of Nifty index options: The Indian evidence

This study examines the market efficiency for the European style Nifty index options using the box‐spread strategy. Time‐stamped transactions data are used to identify the mispricing and arbitrage opportunities for options with this modelfree approach. Profit opportunities, after accounting for the transaction costs, are quite frequent, but do not persist even for two minutes. The mispricing is higher for the contracts with higher liquidity (immediacy) risk captured by the moneyness (the difference between the strike prices and the spot price) and the volatility of the underlying. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 29:544–562, 2009     

The persistence of excess brand loyalty over multiple years

This study examines the extent to which packaged-goods brands exhibit excess loyalty over a multi-year period. Brand loyalty for 300 brands in 20 UK product categories are compared to theoretically expected loyalty levels calculated using the Dirichlet model. Results show that while many brands show excess loyalty in a particular year (31%), fewer of them (25% and 22%) exhibit excess loyalty over 2 and 3?years, respectively. Almost all the brands that do show persistent excess loyalty are private-label brands or are market-share leaders (either the biggest or the second-biggest brand in the market). Therefore, excess loyalty over multiple years is a rare occurrence for a brand unless it is a market leader or a private-label brand. The study also shows that 38% of all high-share brands have consistent excess loyalty, and 37% of all private-label brands have consistent excess loyalty. These results suggest that existing explanations in the literature as to the sources of excess loyalty need further investigation. The reason is that those explanations relate to distribution effects, which should be similar across such brands. They therefore imply that most high-share and private-label brands should exhibit excess loyalty. The study suggests several avenues for further research to identify the reasons why some high-share or private-label brands show excess loyalty and others do not.     

TOUGH LOVE AND INTERGENERATIONAL ALTRUISM*

This article develops and studies a tough love model of intergenerational altruism. We model tough love by modifying the Barro‐Becker standard altruism model in two ways. First, the child’s discount factor is endogenously determined, so lower childhood consumption leads to a higher discount factor later in life. Second, the parent evaluates the child’s lifetime utility with a constant high discount factor. Our model predicts that parental transfers will fall when the child’s discount factor falls. This is in contrast with the standard altruism model, which predicts that parental transfers are independent of exogenous changes in the child’s discount factor.     

An Empirical Reexamination of the Impact of CBOE Option Initiation on the Volatility and Trading Volume of the Underlying Equities: 1973–1986

This study presents an empirical analysis of the impact of Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) option initiation on the price volatility and trading volume of the underlying equities. Virtually every firm with options listed on the CBOE from April 1973 to June 1986 is included in the empirical tests. The results of the tests strongly suggest that option listing leads to decreases in the total (but not systematic) risk of optioned firms. Although total trading volume appears to increase following option listing, securities listed after 1980 show smaller increases in volume than those listed in the early years of option trading.     

Improving portfolio diversification: Identifying the right baskets for putting your eggs

We measure the economic value of diversification for international multiasset investment strategies. This study implements five existing diversification measures and proposes a novel measure of diversification, the unsystematic risk ratio (URR). Only the URR and the effective number of bets measures predict the future risk‐adjusted performance. These relations are robust to the choice of investment horizon and degree of relative risk aversion. The diversification benefits are larger for the frontier and emerging markets than for the developed markets, for multiasset strategies than for single asset class strategies, and for the pre‐crisis and post‐crisis periods than for the financial crisis period.     

Options pricing and short-selling in the underlying: Evidence from India

This study provides new insights into certain recent developments in derivatives trading in India. Specifically, it examines the implications of introduction of short-selling for pricing efficiency of the Nifty 50 index derivative contracts of National Stock Exchange of India. The empirical results suggest that the introduction of short-selling, supported by a well-functioning security lending and borrowing market, has significantly reduced the overpricing of Nifty 50 index put options. Moreover, the introduction of this short-selling mechanism has lessened the underpricing of Nifty 50 index futures.