A truly global crisis? Evidence from contagion dependence across international REIT markets

This study examines the global nature of the recent crisis under bivariate Markov-switching models for pre- and post-crisis periods using the breakpoint of August 9, 2007. It quantifies international synchronization of boom-bust regime switches to investigate contagion-type dynamic comovements of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Global REIT markets display persistent bust regimes from September 2008 to May 2009, whereas the regime-switching patterns are not significant in the pre-crisis period. The results provide new evidence for global REIT contagion phenomena and suggest greater difficulties in diversifying risks across global REIT markets during the post-crisis period.     

政治关联与公司治理有效性——基于上市公司证券违规的数据

管理者政治关联在强化企业竞争优势的同时,也会弱化公司治理机制的有效性.本文基于公司违规行为发生及管理者被迫离职两个方面,利用Bivariate Probit模型和Logit模型研究管理者政治关联对公司治理有效性的影响.研究发现,拥有政治关联的管理者所在企业更加倾向发生违规行为,尤其是民营企业;管理者的政治关联能够降低其违规行为被稽查处理的可能性,尤其是国有企业.政治关联有助于管理者建立职位壕沟,降低管理者被迫离职的概率;而企业违规行为被稽查后,管理者被迫离职的可能性将显著提高.文章的研究结果证明,管理者政治关联会弱化企业发生违规行为的事前监管,同时也会降低企业违规行为的稽查在事后监管中的公司治理效果.     

Is there a virtuous circle relationship between innovation activities and exports? A comparison of food and agricultural firms

This study examines the existence of an interrelationship between innovation decisions and exports for food and agricultural firms as such a relationship could be the source of competitive advantages. Thus, taking as a theoretical basis the focus provided by the Resource-Based-View, the innovation and export decisions taken from 2006 to 2011 by 165 agricultural firms and 783 food companies operating in Spain (Europe) are examined here. The results of the bivariate probit and matching models used indicate a bi-directional nature of these decisions in the case of food companies and a positive though not bidirectional one in the case of the agricultural firms. Furthermore, a certain persistence is seen in the use of these decisions in both types of firms. For food companies, capital intensity and size are also determinants of innovation and exports. From the viewpoint of the decisions taken by individual firms, the bidirectional relationship could involve significant pressure in terms of the larger volume of both technological and human resources required. Agricultural and food policy decisions should incentivize these decisions given that in order to operate successfully in the global market it is necessary to acquire these competitive advantages, which also favor the growth of the agriculture and food trades.     

Probabilistic Models for Bacterial Taxonomy

We give a survey of different partitioning methods that have been applied to bacterial taxonomy. We introduce a theoretical framework, which makes it possible to treat the various models in a unified way. The key concepts of our approach are prediction and storing of microbiological information in a Bayesian forecasting setting. We show that there is a close connection between classification and probabilistic identification and that, in fact, our approach ties these two concepts together in a coherent way.     

THE BIVARIATE EXPONENTIAL DISTRIBUTION; A REVIEW AND SOME NEW RESULTS

Various models have been proposed as bivariate forms of the exponential distribution. A brief but comprehensive review is presented which classifies, interrelates and contrasts the different models and outlines what is known about distributional properties, applicability and estimation and testing of parameters (particularly the association parameter). Some new results are presented for one particular model. Maximum likelihood, and moment–type, estimators of the association parameter are examined. Asymptotic variances are derived and attention is given to the relative efficiency of the estimators and to problems of their evaluation.     

Cyclical correlations, credit contagion, and portfolio losses

We model aggregate credit losses on large portfolios of financial positions contracted with firms subject to both cyclical default correlation and direct default contagion processes. Cyclical correlation is due to the dependence of firms on common economic factors. Contagion is associated with the local interaction of firms with their business partners. We provide an explicit normal approximation of the distribution of portfolio losses. We quantify the relation between the variability of global economic fundamentals, strength of local firm interaction, and the fluctuation of losses. We find that cyclical oscillations in fundamentals dominate average losses, while local interaction causes additional fluctuations of losses around their average. The strength of the contagion-induced loss variability depends on the complexity of the business partner network.     

Is participation in agri-environmental programs affected by liquidity and solvency?

Financial constraints, both in the short and long run, have an impact on economic well-being of farm families. Additionally, financial constraints have an impact on production efficiency and technology adoption. This study investigates factors affecting farmers’ participation in the agri-environmental programs like Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Programs (EQIPs) in the U.S. particular attention is given to the roles of liquidity and solvency on participation in CRP and EQIP. Results show that both liquidity and solvency have a negative impact on participation in such programs. Additionally, we found that access to the Internet plays an important role in the farmer's decision to participate in CRP and EQIP. Our results also suggested that beginning farmers are more likely to participate in EQIP program.     

Forward and spot exchange rates in a bivariate TAR framework

Structural exchange rate models explain only a small part of the movements in dollar exchange rate. Recent empirical work has focused on the failure to account for nonlinearities in the data generating mechanism, as an explanation of this bad performance. Here two bivariate threshold autoregressive models for the spot and forward exchange rates are considered. In the first model the regimes are determined by the log difference of the two rates; in the second one the regimes are driven by the forward spot no-arbitrage condition. These processes are able to capture the ‘swing’ behaviour observed in the exchange rate market. Finally the forecasting ability of the models for the dollar/DM exchange rate is evaluated by stochastic simulation.     

Bivariate mixed normal GARCH models and out-of-sample hedge performances

This study compares bivariate mixed normal GARCH models with standard bivariate GARCH models in terms of the percentage variance reduction of the out-of-sample hedged portfolio and also statistical significance tests of performance improvements using Superior Predictive Ability statistics. All competing models are applied to corn and wheat futures and empirical results demonstrate that the standard BEKK-GARCH model significantly outperforms the other competing GARCH models at shorter horizons. However, as the hedge horizon is extended to longer than 10 days, it is evident that the mixed normal BEKK-GARCH model is the best at the usual significance level of 5%.