Recap of the Joint Symposium of the 12th Annual Conference on Financial Economics and Accounting and the 9th Conference on Pacific Basin Finance,Economics, and Accounting,September 21–22, 2001

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting -     

Are Expected Inflation Rates and Expected Real Rates Negatively Correlated? A Long‐Run Test of the Mundell‐Tobin Hypothesis

Some empirical evidence suggests that the expected real interest and expected inflation rates are negatively correlated. This hypothesis of negative correlation is sometimes known as the Mundell‐Tobin hypothesis. In this article we reinvestigate this negative relation from a long‐term point of view using cointegration analysis. The data on the historical interest rate on T‐bills and the inflation rate indicate that the Mundell‐Tobin hypothesis does not hold in the long run for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. We also obtain similar results using the real interest rate on index‐linked gilt traded in the United Kingdom.     

An Intertemporal CAPM Approach to Evaluate Mutual Fund Performance

Merton (1973) and Campbell (1993) have demonstrated that if an investor anticipates information shifts, he will adjust his portfolio choice today in an attempt to hedge these shifts. Exploiting these insights, we construct a new performance measure to evaluate fund managers' hedging ability. This new measure is different from two widely adopted performance evaluation measures: securities selectivity and market timing. Moreover, an econometric methodology is developed to simultaneously estimate the magnitudes of these three portfolio performance evaluation measures. The results show that mutual fund managers are on average with positive security selection and negative market timing ability. Furthermore, the mutual funds with investment style classified as Asset Allocation generally have positive hedging timing ability.     

Indirect tests of the Haugen-Lakonishok small-firm/January effect hypotheses: window dressing versus performance hedging

Equity mutual fund data from 1976–1993 is used to test hypotheses that distinguish window dressing from performance hedging. No significant difference is found pre/post 1983 in the number of funds choosing non-December fiscal year ends or in the percentage of dollars invested when comparing December/non-December fiscal year ends. Significant differences are found in both January returns for mutual funds with December/non-December fiscal year ends and in one month returns for funds with/without a fiscal year end in the previous month. Therefore, if the small-firm/January effect is portfolio manager related, performance hedging, not window dressing, is the more probable source for the “excess” returns.     

Relationship between Treasury bills and Eurodollars: Theoretical and Empirical Analyses

In this paper, we derive an equilibrium relationship between the yields on Eurodollar and Treasury bills based on equivalent martingale results derived by Harrison and Kreps (1979) and Harrison and Pliska (1981, 1983) as well as the corporate debt pricing model developed by Merton (1974). The derived equilibrium relationship incorporates the models used by Booth and Tse (1995) and Shrestha and Welch (2001) as special cases. The equilibrium relationship indicates that the conditional volatility of the yield on Eurodollars explains the variation in the TED spread. We empirically test the equilibrium relationship using a GARCH-M model and the concept of fractional cointegration. We use both the ex ante data implied by the respective futures contracts as well as the ex post spot data with daily, weekly and monthly frequencies. We find empirical support for the Equilibrium relationship.

Intraday Return Volatility Process: Evidence from NASDAQ Stocks

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the distributional and time-series properties of intraday returns. The purpose is to determine whether a GARCH model that allows for time varying variance in a process can adequately represent intraday return volatility. Our primary data set consists of 5-minute returns, trading volumes, and bid-ask spreads during the period January 1, 1999 through March 31, 1999, for a subset of thirty stocks from the NASDAQ 100 Index. Our results indicate that the GARCH(1,1) model best describes the volatility of intraday returns. Current volatility can be explained by past volatility that tends to persist over time. These results are consistent with those of Akgiray (1989) who estimates volatility using the various ARCH and GARCH specifications and finds the GARCH(1,1) model performs the best. We add volume as an additional explanatory variable in the GARCH model to examine if volume can capture the GARCH effects. Consistent with results of Najand and Yung (1991) and Foster (1995) and contrary to those of Lamoureux and Lastrapes (1990), our results show that the persistence in volatility remains in intraday return series even after volume is included in the model as an explanatory variable. We then substitute bid-ask spread for volume in the conditional volatility equation to examine if the latter can capture the GARCH effects. The results show that the GARCH effects remain strongly significant for many of the securities after the introduction of bid-ask spread. Consistent with results of Antoniou, Homes and Priestley (1998), intraday returns also exhibit significant asymmetric responses of volatility to flow of information into the market.     

Wealth Effects of Private Equity Placements: Evidence from Singapore

We examine institutional characteristics and the wealth effects of private equity placements in Singapore. Our findings show that private placements in Singapore generally result in a negative wealth effect and a reduction in ownership concentration. We find that at high levels of ownership concentration, the relation between abnormal returns and changes in ownership concentration is significantly negative. We also show that the market reacts less favorably to placements in which management ownership falls below 50%, but more favorably to issues to single investors. We do not find evidence suggesting that our results are due to an information effect.     

Managerial flexibility and the wealth effect of new product introductions

This paper examines whether investors recognize the value of managerial flexibilities, as proxied by real options, in their valuation of new product introductions. We define a firm’s real options portfolio as the difference between the firm’s market value and its assets in place. A firm’s strategic flexibilities are modeled as the ratio of its real option portfolio to its book value. Using a sample of new product introductions from 1998–2007, we find our real options measure is positively related to announcement period abnormal returns. This result holds after we control for other variables known to be correlated with the announcement effect in previous studies. Our result is robust to alternative measures of real options based on analysts’ earnings expectations and whether a firm has one or multiple segments. In summary, our results suggest that a firm’s perceived strategic and operating flexibilities are an important factor in the valuation of new products.     

Co-determination of capital structure and stock returns—A LISREL approach: An empirical test of Taiwan stock markets

Titman and Wessels (1988) utilize a structural-equations model (LISREL) to find out the latent determinants of capital structure. Maddala and Nimalendran (1996) indicate that the problematic model specification causes the poor results in Titman and Wessels’ research. Chang, Lee, & Lee (2009) apply a Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model to re-examine the same issue as Titman and Wessels did but found more convincing results. We extend Titman and Wessels’ research from using a single-equation approach to a multi-equations approach. In addition to the determinants of firms’ capital structure, those of stock returns are determined simultaneously. Literature indicates that a firm's capital structure may affect its stock returns (Bhandari, 1988), and the reverse is true too (Baker and Wurgler, 2002, Lucas and McDonald, 1990, Welch, 2004). Hence, a firm's determinants of its capital structure and those of its stock returns should be decided simultaneously, rather than independently. By solving the simultaneous equations, we examine the empirical relationship between the two endogenous variables: capital structure and stock returns and find out their common determinants as well. Our results show that stock returns, expected growth, uniqueness, asset structure, profitability, and industry classification are the main factors of capital structure, while the primary determinants of stock returns are leverage, expected growth, profitability, value and liquidity. The level of debt ratios and stock returns are mutually determined by the aforementioned factors and themselves.     

RECAP OF NINTH CONFERENCE ON FINANCIAL ECONOMICS AND ACCOUNTING

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting -