How to hedge if the payment date is uncertain?

This paper investigates how firms should hedge price risk when payment dates are uncertain. We derive variance-minimizing strategies and show that the instrument choice is essential for this problem, similar to the choice between a strip and a stack hedge. The first setting concentrates on futures hedges, whereas the second allows for nonlinear derivatives. In both settings, firms should take positions in derivatives with different maturities simultaneously. We present an empirical analysis for commodities and exchange rates, showing that in both settings the optimal strategy clearly outperforms the commonly used heuristic strategies which consider only one hedging instrument at a time.     

Can outstanding dividend payments be estimated by American options?

Based on historical market data for American options on a stock and no-arbitrage bounds on future dividends they can!      

Board Gender Diversity: Challenges and Implications for Corporations in the East African Community

ABSTRACT

East African Community’s (EAC) corporations are required to follow a regional treaty of mainstreaming gender equality. This article discusses challenges encountered by corporate boards of the EAC’s corporations when adding women. Agency and resource dependence theories led the study, while a review of the literature was the methodology. We discuss the benefits of diverse boards and challenges faced when developing this diversity. We show how power distance, masculinity, and certainty avoidance prevent women from corporate boards. Furthermore, we discuss how social orientation and business environment impact women’s participation. The article discusses various strategies to be considered for increasing diversity.     

Optimal portfolios with a positive lower bound on final wealth

We consider the determination of optimal portfolios under a lower bound on the final wealth. Possible applications range from capital guarantee strategies over life insurance investment where part of the benefit is a guaranteed return on capital to continuous-time mean-variance problems with a strictly positive lower bound. Our solution method consists of transforming the original problem into a portfolio problem without a positive lower bound but a transformed utility function and a modified initial wealth.     

National Identity and the Challenge of Health Reform in Canada

Health reform remains the most contentious policy issue in Canada. Medicare is subject to the same political forces that demand state retrenchment in other areas, but it has escaped wholesale reorganization because of the commitment of Canadians to the principles of medicare, because the provinces and the federal government remain locked in a battle about provincial autonomy, and because the existing system serves the interests of various professional groups including organized medicine. Nevertheless, reform and, especially, expansion of coverage is essential if the existing system is to be sustained. The most encouraging aspect of current debate is the recognition that we can look beyond the U.S. for reforms more consistent with the underlying values of Canadians than is the U.S. system.     

Problems of large‐scale fashion designers in Accra,Ghana

A survey was conducted to investigate the problems faced by large‐scale fashion designers in Ghana. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The problems the respondents encountered were manpower, economic, logistic and social. Additional training in fashion design outside Ghana and a high level of education were identified as assets in the export trade. Suggestions to the Ghanaian Government and other stake holders, to improve the fashion industry and thus enable the industry to contribute effectively to the realization of the economic goals outlined in ‘Ghana’s Vision 2020’ (development plan), are discussed.     

Optimal Portfolios with Bounded Capital at Risk

We consider some continuous-time Markowitz type portfolio problems that consist of maximizing expected terminal wealth under the constraint of an upper bound for the capital at risk. In a Black–Scholes setting we obtain closed-form explicit solutions and compare their form and implications to those of the classical continuous-time mean-variance problem. We also consider more general price processes that allow for larger fluctuations in the returns.     

Drift matters: An analysis of commodity derivatives

This article presents a reduced‐form, two‐factor model to price commodity derivatives, which generalizes the model by Schwartz and Smith (2000). The model allows for two mean‐reverting stochastic factors and therefore implies that spot and futures prices can be stationary. An empirical study for the crude oil market tests the new model. Out‐of‐sample pricing and hedging results for futures and forwards show that the new model dominates the nonstationary model by Schwartz and Smith in the following sense: It works equally well for short‐term contracts but leads to major improvements for long‐term contracts. This finding is particularly relevant for typical applications like the valuation of commodity‐linked real assets with long maturities. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:211–241, 2005