Multi-factor financial planning: an outline and illustration

This paper deals with the support of strategically oriented financial planning processes in business firms. In handling a financial planning problem, the decision maker has to deal with a number of complications. In this paper special attention is paid to the risk with regard to the outcomes of the financial plan and the existence of multiple, conflicting goals. An interactive approach to financial planning is presented. Risk is modeled by means of so-called multi-factor risk models and multiple goals are explicitly accounted for through the use of an interactive goal programming method. The use of the interactive approach will be numerically demonstrated by means of an exemplary planning problem.     

Japan's financial deregulation and linkage of the Gensaki and Euroyen deposit markets

This paper examines whether Japan's financial deregulation weakened the linkage between the Euroyen and Gensaki markets. It defines and analyses the linkage of the two markets in terms of the persistence and predictability of yield spreads, as well as cross-market causality. By using Johansen tests and an error correction model, this paper shows first, cross-market causality before and after deregulation; and second, one common trend in interest rates, substantial Gensaki—Euroyen yield spreads, and a slower response of the one-month Gensaki—Euroyen yield spread to a shock after deregulation.     

Cost and technical change: Effects from bank deregulation

Banks were substantially deregulated during the 1980s. This altered the cost-minimizing mix between deposit interest payments and operating expenses (capital and labor for branch convenience and free deposit services). Measured bank output was relatively unaffected by these changes. The proportion of deposits receiving higher interest rates increased more rapidly than factor quantities were reduced, so unit deposit costs rose. Consumers benefited, but the measured net effects for banks were negative, averaging –0.8% to –1.4% a year in net technical change from 1977 to 1988. These influences were measured three different ways and for both equilibrium and disequilibrium factor input specifications. All three approaches—a standard time trend, a time-specific index, and shifts in cross-sectional cost functions—gave consistent results. The results were robust whether measured at the banking firm or branch office level or on the cost frontier.     

Dating the productivity slowdown with a structural time-series model

This paper challenges the widely accepted view that the productivity slowdown began after 1973. Instead, the empirical evidence shows that the growth rate of trend productivity began to drop rapidly in the mid-1960s, and that it had fallen by more than one-third by 1970. The slowdown ended in 1980, well before the advent of the information technology revolution, and is best seen as a sequential process unfolding in historical time, not one caused by an isolated event such as the oil price shock. These findings are at variance with propositions thought self-evident by many economists. This is important, since dating a phenomenon should be the first step in accounting for its causes.     

Transaction costs and market efficiency: Evidence from commission deregulation

This study analyzes the impacts of explicit transaction costs on weak-form market efficiency within the context of the brokerage commission deregulation in Japan in October 1999, which led to lower commission rates across the market. Applying two alternative statistical tests to both daily and weekly data, we find that return randomness (unpredictability) increases significantly for stocks listed in Japan, but not for the Japanese stocks dually listed in the United States, which are immune to the deregulation. These results suggest an inefficiency loss or an efficiency gain in the Japanese equity market following the deregulation, insofar as randomness proxies for efficiency.     

Obesity: An economic and financial perspective

Obesity has been slowly increasing in most countries. This problem has increased to an extent that it is being labeled an epidemic and a leading cause of preventable deaths, second only to smoking. This paper provides a synthesis of the extant economics literature on obesity. More importantly, a framework outlining the economic causes and effects of obesity is discussed. The causes of obesity are many, including economic, technical, historical, and biological. The effects of obesity can be external or internal. These effects, in turn, can be direct or indirect. Recommendations for governments and businesses and directions for future research are discussed. Helpful comments from James Payne and research assistance of Richard Connelly are appreciated. Financial support from the Katie School of Insurance at Illinois State University is gratefully acknowledged.     

Supplier selection in agile supply chains: An information-processing model and an illustration

Agile supply chains need to be highly flexible in order to reconfigure quickly in response to changes in their environment. An effective supplier selection process is essential for this. This paper develops a model that helps overcome the information-processing difficulties inherent in screening a large number of potential suppliers in the early stages of the selection process. Based on radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF-ANN), the model enables potential suppliers to be assessed against multiple criteria using both quantitative and qualitative measures. Its efficacy is illustrated using empirical data from the Chinese electrical appliance and equipment manufacturing industries.     

基于效率视角的金融生态研究综述

金融生态是具有中国特色的概念。学界对金融生态的研究,对提高我国金融业效率具有重要意义。本文基于效率视角从理论和实证两方面对金融生态理论研究进行了梳理,重点梳理并评析金融生态的内涵、假设前提、金融生态和金融效率的关系三个方面,并对金融生态的进一步研究作出展望。     

Creating innovative opportunities through research collaboration: An evolutionary framework and empirical illustration in engineering

This paper analyses the creation of innovative opportunities through research collaborations. It contributes by (i) providing an evolutionary conceptual framework for the formation and exploitation of innovative opportunities through research collaboration; and by (ii) providing an empirical illustration of this framework by applying it to a case study of firms׳ research collaboration taking place in university–industry research centers in engineering. The evolutionary framework developed specifically focuses on the generation of novelty and variety and on selection pressures as key for the creation of opportunities. It also emphasizes the differences between small and large firms when it comes to role of research collaboration for opportunity creation. Empirically, we illustrate that firms in general focus more on the generation of variety in the form of (fundamental) knowledge, than on research collaboration leading directly to the formation and exploitation of opportunities. For large firms, the focus is rather to transfer this created variety back to the firm, to use for inputs into the in-house creation of opportunities. In contrast, small firms focus instead on using research collaboration to generate and develop knowledge about customer needs in order to create market opportunities, especially through networking with large firms participating in the collaboration.     

The liquidity risk–financial performance nexus: Evidence from hybrid financial institutions

This paper uses a sample of 532 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in 73 countries to investigate the effect of liquidity risk on the financial performance of MFIs and also enquires whether this effect changes in the presence of credit risk. It observes that liquidity risk exhibits a robust negative and statistically significant effect on the financial performance of MFIs. However, in the presence of credit risk, this negative effect transmutes into a positive effect. The paper also observes that in the presence of liquidity risk, credit risk impacts the financial performance of MFIs positively.     

货币政策传导机制:一个纳入非正式金融变量的结构分析

本文立足于中国当前金融结构特点,借助纳入非正式金融变量的资产组合分析框架,从资产结构的变化、微观经济个体行为的变化来分析中国货币政策传导机制。提出多层次资本市场的建立和完善,利率、汇率等资产价格形成的市场化对于货币政策的传导具有重要的润滑作用。     

Recent developments in financial economics and econometrics: An overview

Research papers in empirical finance and financial econometrics are among the most widely cited, downloaded and viewed articles in the discipline of Finance. The special issue presents several papers by leading scholars in the field on “Recent Developments in Financial Economics and Econometrics”. The breadth of coverage is substantial, and includes original research and comprehensive review papers on theoretical, empirical and numerical topics in Financial Economics and Econometrics by leading researchers in finance, financial economics, financial econometrics and financial statistics. The purpose of this special issue on “Recent Developments in Financial Economics and Econometrics” is to highlight several novel and significant developments in financial economics and financial econometrics, specifically dynamic price integration in the global gold market, a conditional single index model with local covariates for detecting and evaluating active management, whether the Basel Accord has improved risk management during the global financial crisis, the role of banking regulation in an economy under credit risk and liquidity shock, separating information maximum likelihood estimation of the integrated volatility and covariance with micro-market noise, stress testing correlation matrices for risk management, whether bank relationship matters for corporate risk taking, with evidence from listed firms in Taiwan, pricing options on stocks denominated in different currencies, with theory and illustrations, EVT and tail-risk modelling, with evidence from market indices and volatility series, the economics of data using simple model free volatility in a high frequency world, arbitrage-free implied volatility surfaces for options on single stock futures, the non-uniform pricing effect of employee stock options using quantile regression, nonlinear dynamics and recurrence plots for detecting financial crisis, how news sentiment impacts asset volatility, with evidence from long memory and regime-switching approaches, quantitative evaluation of contingent capital and its applications, high quantiles estimation with Quasi-PORT and DPOT, with an application to value-at-risk for financial variables, evaluating inflation targeting based on the distribution of inflation and inflation volatility, the size effects of volatility spillovers for firm performance and exchange rates in tourism, forecasting volatility with the realized range in the presence of noise and non-trading, using CARRX models to study factors affecting the volatilities of Asian equity markets, deciphering the Libor and Euribor spreads during the subprime crisis, information transmission between sovereign debt CDS and other financial factors for Latin America, time-varying mixture GARCH models and asymmetric volatility, and diagnostic checking for non-stationary ARMA models with an application to financial data.     

An agent-based model for financial vulnerability

This study addresses a critical regulatory shortfall by developing a platform to extend stress testing from a microprudential approach to a dynamic, macroprudential approach. This paper describes the ensuing agent-based model for analyzing the vulnerability of the financial system to asset- and funding-based fire sales. The model captures the dynamic interactions of agents in the financial system extending from the suppliers of funding through the intermediation and transformation functions of the bank/dealers to the financial institutions that use the funds to trade in the asset markets. The model replicates the key finding that it is the reaction to initial losses, rather than the losses themselves, that determine the extent of a crisis. By building on a detailed mapping of the transformations and dynamics of the financial system, the agent-based model provides an avenue toward risk management that can illuminate the pathways for the propagation of key crisis dynamics such as fire sales and funding runs.     

An analysis of risky financial decisions

A problem of financing uncertain cost of a project is investigated. The paper analyses the allocation and the loss due to the cost uncertainty. Different formulations of the problem are suggested and compared: expected profits, chance constraint maximization and a utility approach. It is shown that even a risk-neutral manager is willing to pay a premium to reduce uncertainty. The two approaches to risk, chance constraint versus concave utility, are shown to be non-equivalent.     

Estimating structural changes in regression quantiles

This paper considers the estimation of multiple structural changes occurring at unknown dates in one or multiple conditional quantile functions. The analysis covers time series models as well as models with repeated cross-sections. We estimate the break dates and other parameters jointly by minimizing the check function over all permissible break dates. The limiting distribution of the estimator is derived and the coverage property of the resulting confidence interval is assessed via simulations. A procedure to determine the number of breaks is also discussed. Empirical applications to the quarterly US real GDP growth rate and the underage drunk driving data suggest that the method can deliver more informative results than the analysis of the conditional mean function alone.     

Effect of Online Dating on Assortative Mating: Evidence from South Korea

Online dating services have increased in popularity around the world, but a lack of quality data hinders our understanding of their role in family formation. This paper studies the effect of online dating services on marital sorting, using a novel dataset with verified information on people and their spouses. Estimates based on matching techniques suggest that, relative to other spouse search methods, online dating promotes marriages that exhibit weaker sorting along occupation and geographical proximity but stronger sorting along education and other demographic traits. Sensitivity analysis, including the Rosenbaum Bounds approach, suggests that online dating's impact on marital sorting is robust to potential selection bias. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.