Numerical computation of Theta in a jump-diffusion model by integration by parts

Using the Malliavin calculus in time inhomogeneous jump-diffusion models, we obtain an expression for the sensitivity Theta of an option price (with respect to maturity) as the expectation of the option payoff multiplied by a stochastic weight. This expression is used to design efficient numerical algorithms that are compared with traditional finite-difference methods for the computation of Theta. Our proof can be viewed as a generalization of Dupire's integration by parts to arbitrary and possibly non-smooth payoff functions. In the time homogeneous case, Theta admits an expression from the Black–Scholes PDE in terms of Delta and Gamma but the representation formula obtained in this way is different from ours. Numerical simulations are presented in order to compare the efficiency of the finite-difference and Malliavin methods.     

Cost efficiency of the banking industry in the South Eastern European region

This paper analyses cost efficiency in the banking sector of six South Eastern European countries over the period 1998–2003. A stochastic frontier approach, incorporating firm-specific and country-related variables, indicates a generally low level of cost efficiency, with significant inefficiency differences among countries. Foreign banks and banks with higher foreign bank ownership involvement are associated with lower inefficiency. Furthermore, we observe a negative correlation of cost inefficiency with bank capitalization and firm market share, and a positive one with the fraction of loans in the asset portfolio.     

Financial literacy and portfolio diversification

We use a survey of individual investors disclosed by the Portuguese Securities Commission (CMVM) in May 2005 to study the impact of investors’ levels of financial literacy on portfolio diversification. We consider distinct aspects of financial literacy, and control for socioeconomic and behavioral differences among individual groups of investors. Our results suggest that investors’ educational levels and their financial knowledge have a positive impact on investor diversification. The information sources used by retail investors to gather information on markets and financial products also have a significant impact on the number of different assets included in a portfolio.     

European financial market dependence: An industry analysis

This paper uses a copula model to investigate the degree and determinants of European market dependence across 10 industries in 12 Euro zone and 8 non-Euro zone stock markets during the period 1992–2011. Most of the industries in Euro countries show a dependence increase with the Euro-area after the introduction of the Euro. The effects are strongest in countries with larger market capitalization and in the Financials, Industrials, Consumer Goods, Utilities, Technology and Telecommunications industries. Overall, the export intensity, interest rate sensitivity and competitiveness of an industry and the financial development and economic openness of a country are the most important determinants of changes in equity market dependence. The period around the Lehman collapse also shows higher equity market dependence between European countries, while the lower dependence increase during the period of the recent European sovereign debt crisis suggests that country-specific factors may matter more than before.     

Determinants of risk in the banking sector during the European Financial Crisis

Risk assessment in the banking sector has been a prominent topic in the banking literature and has gained attention especially since the recent financial crises. In particular, the European crisis, which was the first since the formation of the Eurozone, underlined a number of significant problems and increased concerns on the tail or crash risk of banks. In the present study, we seek to examine whether information asymmetry, the importance of banks in the financial system and systemic risk play significant roles in the evolution of stock crashes in the banking sector. Information asymmetry is proxied by opacity, the importance of a bank in a financial network is proxied by network centrality, and systemic risk is proxied by clustering. The research framework considers a number of regulatory, reporting and financial market factors that have also been determined to relate to stock crashes and shows that all of the above factors are related to (idiosyncratic) stock crash risk under specific conditions.     

Dynamic technical and allocative efficiencies in European banking

This paper examines the performance of European banks during the pre-crisis and post-crisis periods, both in terms of technical and allocative efficiencies. We use an innovative Bayesian dynamic frontier model that: (1) distinguishes between short-run and long-run performance; and (2) provides impulse response functions to examine the dynamic effect of shocks in technical and allocative inefficiencies. Based on a rich sample of European banks, we show that while there was a drop in efficiency for most countries following the crisis, the long-run results suggest improvement both in terms of technical and allocative efficiencies. The impulse response functions also show that in the case of shocks in the system, banks seem to revert back to these long-run allocative efficiency scores. We discuss the results in terms of the current financial crisis and provide interesting implications for the European banking industry. We also discuss the determinants of technical and allocative efficiencies. (We would like to thank Professor Allen N. Berger and Professor Andy Mullineux for their valuable comments on the early version of this paper.)     

Efficiency and productivity growth in the banking industry of Central and Eastern Europe

We employ the directional technology distance function and provide estimates of bank efficiency and productivity change across Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and across banks with different ownership status for the period 1998–2003. Our results demonstrate the strong links of competition and concentration with bank efficiency. They also show that productivity for the whole region initially declined but has improved more recently with further progress on institutional and structural reforms. Input-biased technical change has been consistently positive throughout the entire period suggesting that the reforms have induced favorable changes in relative input prices and input mix. However we find evidence of diverging trends in productivity growth patterns across banking industries and that foreign banks outperform domestic private and state-owned banks both in terms of efficiency and productivity gains. Overall, we find that productivity change in CEE is driven by technological change rather than efficiency change.     

Initial and Long-Run IPO Returns in Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT

This article provides original evidence on IPO underpricing and long-run underperformance in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and compares results to the European Union’s developed capital markets from 2000 to 2009. Using both index-adjusted and CAPM-adjusted returns, we find significant underpricing that is significantly higher than underpricing of comparable IPOs in the European Union’s developed capital markets. We show that the CEE’s initial IPO returns also exhibit significantly higher volatility. In line with the asymmetric information theory, we indicate that smaller IPOs in the CEE region have greater underpricing than the larger IPOs. Contrary to the literature, we unambiguously confirm long-run underperformance toward the benchmarks. In some model specifications, we also find that IPO long-run underperformance in the CEE region is less present than in the European Union’s developed capital markets.     

On the volatility spillover between lslamic and conventional stock markets: A quantile regression analysis

This paper aims at analyzing the degree and structure of interdependencies in terms of volatility (transmission, contagion) between Islamic and conventional stock markets on calm periods and at times of financial fragility and crisis. We focused on the recent financial instability periods and used the Quantile Regression-based GARCH model. Main results lead to very interesting conclusions. First, it has been found that Islamic stock markets are not totally immune to the global financial crisis. Second, a very strong interdependence is sensed from the conventional to the Islamic stock markets, especially, from the conventional developed markets to the Islamic Emerging and Arab markets and to the Islamic developed markets. Finally, it has been proved that the interdependencies from conventional to Islamic markets are propagated between Islamic markets. Our findings suggest that the Islamic finance industry does not seem able to provide cushion against economic and financial shocks that affect conventional markets.     

Analysing liquidity and absorption limits of electronic markets with volume durations

This paper focuses on the liquidity of electronic stock markets applying a sequential estimation approach of models for volume duration with increasing threshold values. A modified ACD model with a Box–Tukey transformation and a flexible generalized beta distribution is proposed to capture the changing cluster structure of duration processes. The estimation results with German XETRA data reveal the market's absorption limit for high volumes of shares, expanding the time costs of illiquidity when trading these quantities.     

Central European foreign exchange markets: a cross-spectral analysis of the 2007 financial crisis

This article investigates co-movements between currency markets of Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Euro in the year following the drying up of money markets in August 2007. The article shows that assessing the degree of foreign currency co-movement by correlation can lead to concluding, erroneously, that financial contagion has not occurred. Using cross-spectral methods, the article shows that defining contagion as changes in the structure of co-movements of asset prices encompasses more of the complex nature of exchange rate dynamics. What is shown is that, following August 2007, there is increase in the intensity of co-movements, but non-linearly. Focusing on the activities of a mix of banks and currency managers, it is suggested that changes in the structure of currency interaction present an unfavourable view of the contagion experienced by at least three of these currencies.     

Competition,efficiency and soundness in European life insurance markets

This paper provides cross-country evidence on the association between soundness and competition in the life insurance industry, where competition is measured by the Boone indicator. We analyse 10 European Union (EU) life insurance markets over the post-deregulation period 1999–2011. The results indicate that competition increases the soundness of the EU life insurance markets. Since the Boone indicator measures competition based on the reallocation of profits from inefficient insurers to efficient ones, our results suggest that efficiency is the mechanism through which competition contributes to insurer solvency. The soundness-enhancing effect of competition is greater for weak insurers than for healthy ones.     

Capital and liquidity ratios and financial distress. Evidence from the European banking industry

Using a large bank-level dataset, we test the relevance of both structural liquidity and capital ratios, as defined in Basel III, on banks' probability of failure. To include all relevant episodes of bank failure and distress (F&D) occurring in the EU-28 member states over the past decade, we develop a broad indicator that includes information not only on bankruptcies, liquidations, under receivership and dissolved banks, but also accounts for state interventions, mergers in distress and EBA stress test results. Estimates from several versions of the logistic probability model indicate that the likelihood of failure and distress decreases with increased liquidity holdings, while capital ratios are significant only for large banks. Our results provide support for Basel III's initiatives on structural liquidity and for the increased regulatory focus on large and systemically important banks.     

A productivity analysis of Central and Eastern European banking taking into account risk decomposition and environmental variables

This paper develops a Luenberger productivity index that is applied to a technology where desirable and undesirable outputs are jointly produced and are possibly negative. The components of this Luenberger productivity index - the efficiency change and the components of the technological shift - are then decomposed into factors determined by the technology, adjusted and then for ‘risk and environment’, ‘risk management’ and ‘environmental effects’. The method is applied to Central and Eastern European banks operating during 1998-2003 utilising three alternative input/output methodologies (intermediation, production and profit/revenue). Additionally, the comparative analysis of the sensitivity of the productivity indices in the choice of the methodologies is undertaken using statistical and kernel density tests. It is found that the main driver of productivity change in Central and Eastern European banks is technological improvement. That is, in the beginning of the analysed period, the results hinged on the banks ability to capitalise on advanced technology and successfully take into account ‘risk and environmental’ factors. Whereas, in later periods, one of the most important factors of technological improvement/decline was ‘risk management’. Finally, the tests employed confirm previous findings, such as Pasiouras (2008)in this journal, that different input/output methodologies produce statistically different productivity results. Finally, we find that external factors, such as ‘risk in the economy’ and banking production, and a ‘corruption perception’ affect the productivity of banks.     

The global financial crisis and integration in European retail banking

The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to investigate the integration process within the European Union retail banking sector by analysing deposit and lending rates to the household sector during the period 2003–2011. Secondly, to assess the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis on the banking integration process, an area that is yet unexplored. An important contribution of the paper is the application of the recently developed Phillips and Sul (2007a) panel convergence methodology which has not hitherto been employed in this area. This method analyses the degree as well as the speed of convergence, identifies the presence of club formation, and measures the behaviour of each country’s transition path relative to the panel average. The empirical results point to the presence of convergence in all deposit and lending rates to the household sector up to 2007. In sharp contrast, the null of convergence is rejected in all deposit and credit markets after the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. These results show that the global crisis has had a detrimental effect on the banking integration process. We find some convergence in a few sub-clusters of countries but the rate of convergence is typically slow and several countries are identified as diverging altogether. In addition, we find that the credit market, in general, is far more heterogeneous than the savings market.     

An investigation of the benefits of portfolio investment in Central and Eastern European stock markets

This paper: (i) examines the potential benefits from diversifying into eight stock markets of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE); and (ii) quantifies the importance of country, industry and time factors in CEE equity returns. The findings suggest that substantial benefits exist from investing in CEE stock markets and that they accrue more from the geographical spread than from the industrial mix of the equities included in the portfolio. However, the returns earned by CEE equities vary dramatically over time. This variability may hamper the efforts of investors attempting to exploit the diversification “free lunch”.     

Risk shifting in the US banking system: An empirical analysis

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on risk shifting. It proposes a method to find out whether risk shifting is present in the banking industry and, if so, what type. The type of risk shifting depends on the group of debt holders to whom risk is shifted. We apply this method to the US banking sector in 1998–2011. To study the relationship between risk shifting and the 2008 crisis, the sample is also split into pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis periods. Our results suggest that the same type of risk shifting is present in the entire sample and in the pre-crisis and crisis subsamples. We find no evidence of risk shifting after the crisis. Furthermore, holding capital buffers seems to disincentivize risk shifting. This finding appears to provide support for the conservative buffer included in Basel III.     

Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve in Four Central European Countries

This paper seeks to shed light on the inflation dynamics of four new central European EU members: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. To this end, the New Keynesian Phillips curve augmented for open economies is estimated and additional statistical tests applied, with the following results: (1) the claim of New Keynesians that the real marginal cost is the main inflation-forcing variable is fragile, (2) inflation seems to be driven by external factors, and (3) although inflation holds a forward-looking component, the backward-looking component is substantial. An intuitive explanation for higher inflation persistence may be adaptive, rather than rational price setting of local firms.     

金融市场的效率内涵及我国政策选择

本文从资金运用角度阐述了金融市场的效率内涵 ,并对金融市场的效率进行了分析和衡量 ,最后在分析我国金融市场效率现状的基础上 ,提出了一些提高我国金融市场效率的看法和建议。     

Mispricing and risk of R&D investment in European firms

We study whether R&D-intensive firms earn superior stock returns compared to matched size and book-to-market portfolios across several financial markets in Europe. Mispricing can arise if investors are not able to correctly estimate the long-term benefits of R&D investment or whether R&D firms are more risky than others. The results confirm that more innovative firms can earn future excess returns. Stocks listed on continental Europe markets and operating in high-tech sectors are more prone to undervaluation. This can be caused in the first case by information asymmetries that are more severe in bank-based countries. No evidence is found for a different risk pattern of R&D-intensive stocks.