When do sell-side analysts switch industries they follow?

Between 1984 and 2014 over 3400 sell-side analysts changed the primary industry they followed. This article documents that analysts are more likely to change their industries when their absolute and relative forecasting accuracy in that industry is low and when the accuracy in the new industry is high. Analysts are more likely to switch industries at the beginning of their careers, after a recent change of an employing brokerage house, and if they have a history of switching industries before. Analysts are less likely to make a switch when their forecasting activity in the industry is high, when the industry is followed by many analysts and when they are employed by a top brokerage house.     

INTENSITY-BASED VALUATION OF RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGES: AN ANALYTICALLY TRACTABLE MODEL

This paper presents an analytically tractable valuation model for residential mortgages. The random mortgage prepayment time is assumed to have an intensity process of the form h _t = h ₀( t ) +γ ( k − r _t )⁺ , where h ₀( t ) is a deterministic function of time, r _t is the short rate, and γ and k are scalar parameters. The first term models exogenous prepayment independent of interest rates (e.g., a multiple of the PSA prepayment function). The second term models refinancing due to declining interest rates and is proportional to the positive part of the distance between a constant threshold level and the current short rate. When the short rate follows a CIR diffusion, we are able to solve the model analytically and find explicit expressions for the present value of the mortgage contract, its principal-only and interest-only parts, as well as their deltas. Mortgage rates at origination are found by solving a non-linear equation. Our solution method is based on explicitly constructing an eigenfunction expansion of the pricing semigroup, a Feynman-Kac semigroup of the CIR diffusion killed at an additive functional that is a linear combination of the integral of the CIR process and an area below a constant threshold and above the process sample path (the so-called area functional). A sensitivity analysis of the term structure of mortgage rates and calibration of the model to market data are presented.     

PRICING EQUITY DERIVATIVES SUBJECT TO BANKRUPTCY

We solve in closed form a parsimonious extension of the Black–Scholes–Merton model with bankruptcy where the hazard rate of bankruptcy is a negative power of the stock price. Combining a scale change and a measure change, the model dynamics is reduced to a linear stochastic differential equation whose solution is a diffusion process that plays a central role in the pricing of Asian options. The solution is in the form of a spectral expansion associated with the diffusion infinitesimal generator. The latter is closely related to the Schrödinger operator with Morse potential. Pricing formulas for both corporate bonds and stock options are obtained in closed form. Term credit spreads on corporate bonds and implied volatility skews of stock options are closely linked in this model, with parameters of the hazard rate specification controlling both the shape of the term structure of credit spreads and the slope of the implied volatility skew. Our analytical formulas are easy to implement and should prove useful to researchers and practitioners in corporate debt and equity derivatives markets.     

Testing the null hypothesis of no regime switching with an application to GDP growth rates

This paper presents tests for the null hypothesis of no regime switching in Hamilton’s (Econometrica 57:357–384, 1989) regime switching model. The test procedures exploit similarities between regime switching models, autoregressions with measurement errors, and finite mixture models. The proposed tests are computationally simple and, contrary to likelihood based tests, have a standard distribution under the null. When the methodology is applied to US GDP growth rates, no strong evidence of regime switching is found. I thank Don Andrews, Peter Phillips, Yuichi Kitamura, Anat Bracha, Patrik Guggenberger, Orit Whiteman and three anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions.     

Investment bank monitoring and bonding of security analysts’ research

We assess investment banks’ influence over the agreement between their analysts’ research behavior and their clients’ interests, in the post-reform era. Competing banks discipline their analysts with worse career outcomes for producing biased reports, issuing shirking reports, and for involvement in the earnings guidance game, showing meaningful monitoring of their analysts. Highly reputable banks provide more monitoring discipline of their analysts and bonding of their moral hazard than other banks. The findings agree with the banks taking responsibility for aligning analysts’ behavior with clients’ interests.     

Does trade unionism have a future in Russia?

Official Russian trade unions seek to maintain their traditional privileges and resources, while alternative unions have remained marginal and relatively ineffectual. The result is that workers are not effectively represented by either type of union. This argument is supported by extensive original research, examining the recent history of Russian unionism.     

Lookback options and diffusion hitting times: A spectral expansion approach

Lookback options have payoffs dependent on the maximum and/or minimum of the underlying price attained during the options lifetime. Based on the relationship between diffusion maximum and minimum and hitting times and the spectral decomposition of diffusion hitting times, this paper gives an analytical characterization of lookback option prices in terms of spectral expansions. In particular, analytical solutions for lookback options under the constant elasticity of variance (CEV) diffusion are obtained.Received: 1 October 2003, Mathematics Subject Classification: 60J35, 60J60, 60G70JEL Classification: G13The author thanks Phelim Boyle for bringing the problem of pricing lookback options under the CEV process to his attention and for useful discussions and Viatcheslav Gorovoi for computational assistance. This research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grants DMI-0200429 and DMS-0223354.     

What model for entry in first-price auctions? A nonparametric approach

We develop a selective entry model for first-price auctions that nests two polar models often estimated in the empirical literature on auctions, Levin and Smith (1994), and Samuelson (1985). The selective entry model features a pro-competitive selection effect. The selection effect is shown to be nonparametrically identifiable, and a nonparametric test for its presence is proposed. This test can be used to discriminate between the two polar models.     

Pricing equity default swaps under the jump-to-default extended CEV model

Equity default swaps (EDS) are hybrid credit-equity products that provide a bridge from credit default swaps (CDS) to equity derivatives with barriers. This paper develops an analytical solution to the EDS pricing problem under the jump-to-default extended constant elasticity of variance model (JDCEV) of Carr and Linetsky. Mathematically, we obtain an analytical solution to the first passage time problem for the JDCEV diffusion process with killing. In particular, we obtain analytical results for the present values of the protection payoff at the triggering event, periodic premium payments up to the triggering event, and the interest accrued from the previous periodic premium payment up to the triggering event, and we determine arbitrage-free equity default swap rates and compare them with CDS rates. Generally, the EDS rate is strictly greater than the corresponding CDS rate. However, when the triggering barrier is set to be a low percentage of the initial stock price and the volatility of the underlying firm’s stock price is moderate, the EDS and CDS rates are quite close. Given the current movement to list CDS contracts on organized derivatives exchanges to alleviate the problems with the counterparty risk and the opacity of over-the-counter CDS trading, we argue that EDS contracts with low triggering barriers may prove to be an interesting alternative to CDS contracts, offering some advantages due to the unambiguity, and transparency of the triggering event based on the observable stock price.