An extension of mean-variance hedging to the discontinuous case

Our goal in this paper is to give a representation of the mean-variance hedging strategy for models whose asset price process is discontinuous as an extension of Gouriéroux, Laurent and Pham (1998) and Rheinländer and Schweizer (1997). However, we have to impose some additional assumptions related to the variance-optimal martingale measure.Received: April 2004, Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 91B28, 60G48, 60H05JEL Classification: G10I would like to express my gratitude to Martin Schweizer and referees for their much valuable advice. I also would like to express my gratitude to Tsukasa Fujiwara, Hideo Nagai and Jun Sekine for many helpful comments.     

ORGANIZATIONAL ARCHITECTURE AND CORPORATE FINANCE

This article is based on remarks I gave at the 2000 meeting of the Southern Finance Association (SFA). I was extraordinarily flattered to be named Distinguished Scholar for 2000 by the SFA; I would like to thank the members and officers of the association for this award. As an SFA board member, I participated in establishing the Distinguished Scholar program. The original idea was to broaden participation in SFA by more of the profession's senior researchers. Last year I believe we chose the ideal person for the inaugural award, Professor Richard Roll of UCLA. But I must admit that I felt somewhat awkward in accepting the award this year. Although I certainly appreciate having my work recognized, I have attended SFA meetings regularly over the last quarter century. They afford a wonderful opportunity to renew valued friendships (some going back to graduate school) and revisit my southern roots. So this award is quite special for me, even if I do not consider myself its ideal recipient.     

Notes on some present day Questions regarding Mortality

Abstract

In the absence of any definite development of actuarial science in Great Britain which would be a suitable subject for this paper I considered that the most useful course would be to discuss some of the problems which are at present exercising my own mind, and no doubt the minds of many of my colleagues. Probably, many of these questions are akin to others which arise in other countries, so that their discussion at a meeting such as this may prove of mutual interest, while even if they are peculiar to ourselves, a disclosure of our doubts and difficulties will indicate the directions in which future developments may be expected. I must, however, emphasize that any views expressed are purely personal, and do not in any way pretend to represent a consensus of British actuarial opinion. Throughout this paper only Ordinary (as opposed to Industrial) business in considered.     

Management accounting texts in New Zealand: the need for a paradigm shift

This paper questions the dominance in textbooks of a management accounting grounded largely in neo-classical economics and scientific management. In New Zealand the most popular textbook used in introductory management accounting courses is Horngren and Foster's Cost Accounting - a Managerial Emphasis.The current seventh edition of the text, although extensively used, is not regarded as adequate for the purpose by many New Zealand educators. The text is seen as being rootd firmly in the traditional understandings of the role of management accounting which are subject to increasing challenge. Other popular texts which are influencing the content of management accounting courses also are reviewed. We conclude that, despite much criticism over many years, modern textbooks have failed to evolve; change is overdue.     

Rockets and feathers: Understanding asymmetric pricing

Prices rise like rockets but fall like feathers. This stylized fact of many markets is confirmed by many empirical studies. In this article, I develop a model with competitive firms and rational partially informed consumers where the asymmetric response to costs by firms emerges naturally. In contrast to public opinion and past work, collusion is not necessary to explain such a result.     

Metaphors,semiotics and futures studies

Metaphor belongs to key concepts of semiotics. I have made my career in the field of semiotics and I appreciate the possibility to tell to the scientific community of futurists how a semiotician sees the various functions of metaphors and their connections to the future. The edited volume CLA 2.0 (Inayatullah & Milojevic, 2015) shows that in addition to metaphors, many futures researchers have found the general language-based approach of semiotics. The paper deals with three issues: first the theory of metaphors as such, much discussed in the semiotic literature; then what semiotics says about the future; and finally, what kind of semiotics we are considering here. I would propose to scrutinise the problem of metaphors and future in light of my own new theory which I call ‘existential semiotics’.     

Pricing of swaps with default risk

In this paper, I study the valuation of interest rate and currency swaps with default risk under the contingent claim analysis framework. I demonstrate that the traditional approach of pricing swap contracts as exchanges of loans underestimates the value of such contracts to the counterparty with higher credit rating and exaggerates the credit spread required to guard against default risk. Numerical simulations show that the swap rate is not sensitive to counterparty credit rating: for a ten year interest rate swap, a one hundred basis point increase in counterparty bond yield spread results in only about one basis point increase in the swap rate. (JEL G10, G12, G13)This paper is based on Chapter 2 of my Ph.D. dissertation at Yale University. I would like to thank my dissertation committee, Kenneth French, Roger Ibbotson, and Jonathan Ingersoll, Jr. (chairman), for helpful advice and guidance. I would also like to thank Keny Back, Richard Lindsey, N. R. Prabhala, Ming Huang, Marti Subrahmanyam, three anonymous referees and especially Bob Jarrow, the editor, for helpful comments and suggestions. Any errors that remain are solely mine. This paper won the 1996 Trefftzs Award for best student paper from the Western Finance Association.     

An approximation pricing algorithm in an incomplete market: A differential geometric approach

The minimal distance equivalent martingale measure (EMM) defined in Goll and Rüschendorf (2001) is the arbitrage-free equilibrium pricing measure. This paper provides an algorithm to approximate its density and the fair price of any contingent claim in an incomplete market. We first approximate the infinite dimensional space of all EMMs by a finite dimensional manifold of EMMs. A Riemannian geometric structure is shown on the manifold. An optimization algorithm on the Riemannian manifold becomes the approximation pricing algorithm. The financial interpretation of the geometry is also given in terms of pricing model risk.Received: February 2004, Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 62P05, 91B24, 91B28JEL Classification: G11, G12, G13Yuan Gao: Present address Block 617, Bukit Panjang Ring Road, 16-806,Singapore 670617. I am currently working in a major investment bank.This paper is based on parts of my doctoral dissertation Gao (2002),which isavailable upon request.Part of the research was done during my visit to HumboldtUniversity in 2002 and was partially supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 373. I am especially thankful to Professor Hans Föllmer for the invitation and helpful discussions.We would like to thank Professor Martin Schweizer,the associate editor and the referee for their constructive comments.     

‘Climategate’ and the maturing of post-normal science

In response to the Climategate scandal, I wrote a number of essays, including a posting on an important critical blog. There I explained the affair in terms of post-normal science. First, that the scientists concerned were doing ‘normal science’, not coping with uncertainties, and then that the ‘extended peer community’ had come into power on the critical blogosphere. There was already a current of criticism of PNS, seeing it as contributing to the supposed corruption of climate science through its denial of Truth. One important essay in that tendency is reproduced here. In my reply to my critics, I argued that we are on the same side, committed to the integrity of science; and I reviewed the progression of my own ideas on climate change. In the light of the criticisms, I conclude with some searching questions about post-normal science.     

Measuring, explaining, and controlling tax evasion: lessons from theory, experiments, and field studies

In this paper, I assess what we have learned about tax evasion since Michael Allingham and Agnar Sandmo launched the modern analysis of tax evasion in 1972. I focus on three specific questions and the answers to these questions that have emerged over the years. First, how do we measure the extent of evasion? Second, how can we explain these patterns of behavior? Third, how can we use these insights to control evasion? In the process, I illustrate my own answers to these questions by highlighting various specific examples of research. My main conclusion is that we have learned many things but that we also still have many gaps in our understanding of how to measure, explain, and control tax evasion. I also give some suggestions—and some predictions—about where promising avenues of future research may lie.     

American bond option pricing in one-factor dynamic term structure models

Arbitrage-tree pricing of American options on bonds in one-factor dynamic term structure models is investigated. We re-derive a general decomposition result which states that the American bond option premium can be split into the value of an otherwise equivalent European option and anearly exercise premium. This extends earlier work on American equity options by e.g. Kim (1990), Jamshidian (1992) and Carr, Jarrow, and Myneni (1992) and parallels recent work by Jamshidian (1991, 1992, 1993) and Chesney, Elliott, and Gibson (1993). We examine a Gaussian class of special cases in some detail and provide a variety of numerical valuation results.An earlier version of the paper was entitled American Bond Option Pricing in One-Factor Spot Interest Rate Models.I am grateful for many helpful comments from two anonymous referees, the participants of the Second Nordic Symposium on Contingent Claims Analysis in Finance held in Bergen, Norway in May of 1994 and from the participants of the EIASM Doctoral Tutorial held in connection with the 1994 EFA annual meeting in Bruxelles. I am particularly indebted to Krishna Ramaswamy for his help and advice during my stay as visiting doctoral fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Financial support from the Aarhus University Research Foundation (Grants # E-1994-SAM-1-1-72 & E-1995-SAM-1-59), the Danish Social Science Research Council, and the Danish Research Academy is gratefully acknowledged. All errors and omissions are my own.     

River stories: Genealogies of a threatened inland river system

Most people now living in Australia's “bread basket”, the much-degraded Murray Darling Basin, are like my family, descendants of convicts or free settlers who came to the inland in the 19th or early 20th centuries. Our legacy includes the dispossession of indigenous peoples, species extinction and the ongoing degradation of the ecological communities which now sustain us. My own family's river stories which “begin” with a pair of impoverished Gaels who migrated with their offspring from the Scottish Highlands, can be considered paradigmatic. I re-narrate it in this essay in response to philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's challenge—I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’Some of these family stories I find myself part of, especially those that have been enacted within the catchment of the now-threatened Lachlan River, are very discomforting, but where do they “truly” begin? In seeking to understand my relationship with the river and its catchment, and with the indigenous peoples “my mob” displaced, I explore several possible “beginnings” and ask a further question: what stories do I want to be part of as co-author, co-narrator and protagonist. I then offer my own yet-to-be enacted “truth and reconciliation” stories about the future of the inland plains I love.     

Ethics and accountability: from the for-itself to the for-the-other

Expanding global markets have resulted in renewed concern with accountability by transnational corporations and other economic agents. Reflections on economic accountability, however, often inadequately theorize necessary ethical presuppositions regarding the moral status of economic collectivities, including the scope of the moral community and the good that this community seeks. This essay addresses these ethical considerations. Taking as my starting point Schweiker's [Schweiker, W. (1993). Accounting for ourselves: accounting practice and the disclosure of ethics. Accounting Organizations and Society, 18(2/3), 231–252] claim that economic entities are properly accountable to a wider scope of good than their own by virtue of the accounts that accountants render of such entities, I argue that the discourse in terms of which the accounts are rendered serves to negate the very relation of obligation from which this accountability derives. Specifically, I argue that the discourse of neoclassical economics that informs accounting practice constructs the identity of the accountable entity such that it is obligated to pursue only its own good. Consequently, extant accounting practices are inadequate to meet the demands for accountability that are legitimately entailed by the act of rendering an account. I explore the implications of this conclusion for understanding economic accountability and related social accounting practices, and I propose the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas to establish a broader accountability on the part of economic entities.     

Valuing foreign exchange rate derivatives with a bounded exchange process

Foreign exchange rates have been subjected to periods of tighter or looser controls as various political and economic forces have waxed and waned. When currencies were backed by gold there were fixed exchange rates. In 1973 floating exchange rates were adopted though many countries did try to keep their currency values within certain ranges. More recently the European Economic Community formalized this practice. Free-floating exchange rates might be well characterized by the lognormal distribution which is standard in option pricing. However, this is probably a poor approximation for exchange rates which are kept within some range by the actions of one or both governments or central banks. This paper develops a model which can be used to value options and other derivative contracts when the underlying exchange rate is bounded in a fixed range (a, b). Methods for pricing both European and American style options are developed.The author would like to thank Ken French and Geert Rouwenhorst for their comments and suggestions.     

Influence of Value for Money Audit on Public Administrations: Looking Beyond Appearances

Value for money (VFM) auditing will soon have been part of the control environment in European and North American public administrations for thirty years, yet, despite its many interesting features, it has received very little attention from researchers. Chief among the VFM audit'sstill unexplored features, would doubtless be the value of its performance as an instrument to control and improve the management of public affairs. In order to partially fill this research gap, I am proposing 14 indicators to measure the effectiveness of VFM audits. But I don't stop there, for pointing out the successes or failures of VFM audits would finally be futile unless one also pointed to their causes. So, turning my attention to causes, I also propose 11 factors which can be used to explain the successes of Auditors General in carrying out VFM audits of public organizations as well as their inevitable failures.     

The priority of floating bonus. Another additional note

In my Paper entitled ‘Contribution Formula, Integral Methods, aud Risk Theory’, which appeared in this Journal as the first pages of the volume 1932, I discussed the Floating Bonus method, and in an Additional Note, page 43, I touched the question of priority. I have afterwards have the honour of receiving from an illustrious colleague, Mr. Elderton, a letter concerning this question, in which he says: —

I have been very interested in reading your paper in the new number of the Skandinavisk Aktuarietidskrift and I wondered if you are aware that the floating bonus system was in use many years ago in an office called the Mutual Life Assurance Society (of London) and that a paper referring to the bonus system was written by H. W. Manly in J. I. A., Vol. XXIII, page 233, in April 1882. Somewhat similar arrangements were made by Industrial Insurance Companies in England when they began to give bonuses to their policies — such bonuses being strictly given as an act of grace. The policies themselves were written as non-participating assurances. I thought as a matter of history you might be interested to have this information and if you can find in Sweden a copy of the J. I. A. you will find some remarks on the discussion of the history of the subject by A. H. Bailey who was then President of the Institute of Actuaries.

Yours sincerely

W. Palin Elderton.     

Accounting and stock market effects of international accounting standards adoption in an emerging economy

This study examines the impact of the mandatory adoption of the 1997 and 2006 Egyptian accounting standards on earnings quality and firm valuation. Extant research finds that IAS-based standards have positive effects on financial statement attributes (e.g., earnings management) and capital market-related variables (e.g., firm valuation) in some countries, and negative or neutral effects in others. Research conducted in this area on emerging markets is scant, and none in Egypt, which has adopted in 1997 an IAS-based standards (later revised twice in 2002 and 2006). Using a sample of Egyptian listed firms around the time of introducing the 1997 and 2006 EAS versions, I find insignificant empirical evidence that earnings management decreases post adoption of each of the EAS versions under investigation. Additionally, I find that firm valuation (Tobin’s q) was significantly negatively affected by both EAS versions under investigation in this study. I attribute these results to the lack of compliance by financial statement preparers, improper regulatory enforcement mechanisms, the poor accounting infrastructure, and the inadequate practitioner training, claimed by prior literature.     

Discrete-time bond and option pricing for jump-diffusion processes

This paper provides a methodology for numerically pricing generalized interest rate contingent claims for jump-diffusion processes. The method enhances the standard finite-differencing approach to deal with partial differential-difference equations derived in a jump-diffusion setting. Numerical illustrations compare jump-diffusion and pure-diffusion models.I am especially grateful to Darrell Duffie, who provided me immensely valuable input on the paper. I would also like to thank Dilip Madan and Rangarajan Sundaram for alleviating my confusion with helpful comments.     

Correlation once more

Abstract

§ 1. Correlation Generally.

In my thesis for Doctorship of 1919, ¹ This Journal, 1919, p. 1. I have made some critical remarks on the theory of correlation, trying especially to exhibit the rather unaccomplished state of this theory, and the danger of releasing its formulae for general use. In a supplementary note, ² Ibidem, p. 204. I have pushed my criticism a little further. Since that time, more than ten years have passed away, but I find my point of view still sustainable. One reproach, however, I have never been able to reject, viz, of having been exclusively negative. In fact, I find this position rather natural, from a philosophical standpoint. The information value of correlation calculations is indeed, as a rule, very small. And this seems the more regrettable, as the importance of the Στχαστι?? Τ?χυη, even for the most difficult questions of knowledge, ought to be very great. In a paper of 1924, “Quelques questions concernant les principes de la théorie des probabilités” ³ Ibidem, 1924, p. 107. I have tried to explain, how I imagine the development of the theory of correlation in order to be more apt to set about such philosophical questions.     

Amplification and asymmetry in crashes and frenzies

We often observe disproportionate reactions to tangible information in large stock price movements. Moreover these movements feature an asymmetry: the number of crashes is more than that of frenzies in the S&P 500 index. This paper offers an explanation for these two characteristics of large movements in which hedging (portfolio insurance) causes amplified price reactions to news and liquidity shocks as well as an asymmetry biased towards crashes. Risk aversion of traders is shown to be essential for the asymmetry of price movements. Also, we show that differential information can enhance both amplification and asymmetry delivered by hedging. This paper is based on part of my Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Minnesota. I am grateful to Andy McLennan and Jan Werner for their valuable advice and unwavering support. Also, I would like thank Mehmet Barlo, Michele Boldrin, Partha Chatterjee, Mehmet Ozhabes, Dimitrios Tsomocos and seminar participants at the University of Minnesota, the MEA and the MFA Meetings in St Louis for helpful comments. Comments on a previous draft by an anonymous referee greatly improved the presentation of this paper. Financial support from William W. Stout Fellowship is gratefully acknowledged.