Local Conditions and Debt in Collections

Using credit reporting firm records on 7 million individuals in the United States, we first demonstrate that debt in collections varies significantly across the country; specifically, the South and West regions have higher shares of individuals with debt in collections than other regions. Second, we identify local factors that are strongly related to debt in collections. Results from our regression models show that neighborhoods with higher rates of debt in collections are more likely to have (1) lower health insurance coverage; (2) lower home values and homeownership rates, (3) a higher share of delinquent and underwater mortgages, (4) lower household incomes, and (5) a higher share of African Americans and Latinos. While our analysis does not identify the causal mechanisms that determine financial distress, the analyses developed here can facilitate research on such mechanisms.     

Failures to Deliver,Short Sale Constraints,and Stock Overvaluation

Studying a large sample of publicly available data on failures to deliver, we find that stocks reaching threshold levels of failures become significantly overvalued. Where short sale constraints are especially binding, we report extreme overpricing and subsequent reversals. These findings support the overvaluation hypothesis, although the mispricing is likely to be difficult to arbitrage because of extreme shorting costs. In addition, threshold stocks with low short interest become more overvalued than threshold stocks with high short interest. This suggests that the level of short interest reflects supply‐side effects when the examination conditions on the difficulty of borrowing shares.     

The Breakdown of Idiosyncratic Volatility Into Expected and Unexpected Components and Its Effects on Stock Returns in Brazil

Based on studies of idiosyncratic volatility developed in the recent literature, this study analyzes its relation with expected returns through the breakdown of idiosyncratic volatility in the Brazilian stock market and presents evidence of the importance of expected idiosyncratic volatility for asset pricing. We study the impact of the expected and unexpected components of idiosyncratic volatility on the returns of shares listed on the BOVESPA between 2004 and 2011. The results show a strong positive and significant relation between expected idiosyncratic volatility and returns. This evidence is highlighted when we use unexpected idiosyncratic volatility to control for unexpected returns. Additional robustness tests, controlling for size and momentum effects, also have positive and significant coefficients, corroborating previous findings.     

Basis Pricing, Futures-Cash Price Transmission and Appropriate Hedge Ratios: The Case of the Soybean Market in Ontario

The academic literature on the determination of risk-minimizing hedge ratios has apparently ignored the potential impact that the pricing strategies adopted by the grain elevators may have on the futures-cash price transmission, and therefore on the determination of the correct hedge ratio. This paper addresses this problem from a theoretical perspective, and then develops a model that is applied to the soybean market in Chatham, Ontario.
La littérature académique concernant la détermination des ratios de couverture à terme minimisant le risque a apparemment ignoré l'impact potential des stratégies des faiseurs de prix sur un marché sur la relation entre les prix spot et les prix à terme. II est possible que de ce fait ces stratégies influencent également la détermination du vrai ratio de couverture. Ce papier traite ce problème d'un point de vue théorique, puis vérifie ces résultats en les appliquant au cas du marché du soja à Chatham, Ontario.     

Are complementary reforms a “luxury” for developing countries?

This paper investigates the impact of complementarity reforms on growth and how it depends on GDP per capita. Based on reform data for six policy areas compiled from various sources during the period 1994–2006 for over 100 countries, we compute composite indicators of reform level and complementarity. We provide qualitative justification for the existence of pair-wise complementarities among policy areas. We then use cross-section and panel data estimates to test the effect of reform level and complementarity on GDP per capita growth. We found reforms to be positively related and their dispersion (or the inverse of complementarity) negatively related to growth, controlling for initial conditions, monetary stability and other structural and institutional variables, as well as endogeneity of reform level and complementarity. We show that the effect of policy complementarity is a stronger condition for sustainable growth in developing than in advanced countries, to conclude that complementary reforms are not a ‘luxury’ for developing countries.     

Protection and Trade in Services: A Survey

This paper surveys the literature on trade in services, focusing on the policies that are used to restrict such trade, the gains from liberalization, and the institutional mechanisms that have been adopted in the pursuit of liberalization. The paper argues that technological progress and international trade negotiations are likely to keep liberalization of trade in services a high profile policy issue. It also suggests that the research agenda should focus on developing better estimates of the welfare costs of protectionism in the service sector.     

Investigating the solvency of brazilian credit unions using a proportional hazard model

Abstract ** : Due to high interest rates and bank spreads, the number of credit unions in Brazil has increased over recent years. As financial institutions, these cooperatives need tools to signal impending financial problems. This paper focuses on one tool that can be used to evaluate credit union solvency: the Cox Proportional Hazards Model. A sample of 80 credit unions from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais was selected to supply data. The analysis period is between December 2001 and June 2003. The results indicate that the relevant indicators for insolvency prediction are, in descending order of predictive ability, General Liquidity, Salary and Benefit Expenses, and the Loan/Equity Ratio. In general, results produced using the delineated theoretical model were in consonance with international literature .