Certainty equivalent,risk premium and asset pricing

This paper attempts to determine the certainty equivalent of an uncertain future cash flow or value through the option pricing method, and builds models of certainty equivalent and certainty equivalent coefficient. Based on the model of certainty equivalent coefficient, this paper further derives models of risk premium and risk-adjusted discount rate. The latter is a new capital asset pricing model (CAPM) accounting for total risk rather than with only the systematic risk accounted for as in the current CAPM. The reliability in relevant financial analysis, valuation, decision making and risk management may be enhanced with these new models.     

浅议标的资产服从混合过程的期权定价模式

本文通过对期权标的资产的价格行为过程进行分析,引入一种价格服从混合过程的新模式,推导出一种新的期权定价模型,获得了较理想的结果.     

A pure foreign exchange asset pricing model

If consumption tastes differ among countries, a position in foreign-denominated nominally riskless bonds is risky in real terms. Risk averse and rational consumer-investors facing such a situation would generally seek a diversified portfolio of foreign bonds. They would demand risk premia in accordance with portfolio (covariance) risk. A model is specified to portray this behavior and it is tested with data from eight countries. The results indicate that the actual premia earned in foreign risky positions are positively related on average to portfolio risk measures; but the premia deviate significantly from those predicted by the model.     

Exchange risk premia and firm characteristics

This paper examines the presence and the determinants of exchange risk premia in stock returns using firm level data from South Korea. We conduct empirical asset pricing tests based on cross-sectional data sorted by firm characteristics such as firm size, liquidity, foreign ownership, and industry. Using alternative model specifications and exchange rate measures, our results support the hypothesis of a significant unconditional exchange risk premium in the Korean stock market at firm and industry levels. More specifically, we find that the exchange risk premium is directly related to firm liquidity and inversely related to firm size and foreign ownership.     

Treasury Bond risk and return, the implications for the hedging of consumption and lessons for asset pricing

All consumption-based models of asset pricing imply that the relation between the conditional mean and conditional volatility of any asset reflects the effectiveness of holding that asset as a hedge against intertemporal variation in the marginal utility of consumption. For Treasury Bonds of various maturities, we find significant positive relations. Our empirical findings support the conclusion that investors must sell bonds short to hedge shocks to marginal utility, because realized bond returns tend to be high (low) when investors least (most) desire an additional dollar of consumption. Implications for special cases of the general consumption-based model are also discussed.     

Are the dynamic linkages between the macroeconomy and asset prices time-varying?

We estimate a number of multivariate regime switching VAR models on a long monthly US data set for eight variables that include excess stock and bond returns, the real T-bill yield, predictors used in the finance literature (default spread and the dividend yield), and three macroeconomic variables (inflation, industrial production growth, and a measure of real money growth). Heteroskedasticity may be accounted for by making the covariance matrix a function of the regime. We find evidence of four regimes and of time-varying covariances. We show that the best in-sample fit is provided by a four state model in which the VAR(1) component fails to be regime-dependent. We interpret this as evidence that the dynamic linkages between financial markets and the macroeconomy have been stable over time. The four-state model can be helpful in forecasting applications and provides one-step ahead predicted Sharpe ratios.     

China's segmented stock market: An application of the conditional international capital asset pricing model

China's segmented stock market provides an opportunity to study conditional international asset pricing from multiple viewpoints—domestic and foreign. We use the multivariate GARCH-M framework of De Santis and Gérard [De Santis, G., and Gérard, B., 1998. How big is the premium for currency risk? Journal of Financial Economics 49, pp. 375–412.], but add conditional local specific risk and find global, local, and currency risk to be priced and time-varying in Chinese markets, suggesting mild segmentation for developing country markets. The time-varying price of currency risk indicates that the strict currency restrictions in China do not sufficiently reduce currency risk to stabilize the price of currency risk. We also find that the price of local risk in the Chinese A stock market is non-time-varying relative to the developed market, but time-varying relative to the emerging market. This finding implies that the Chinese A stock market is more comparable to a developed market than an emerging market. However, results on Chinese B shares show the opposite relationship: from a foreign investor's perspective, Chinese B shares are better categorized as being emerging than developed. This is further supported by an Engle–Granger cointegration test.     

Bank capital regulation, asset risk, and subordinated uninsured debt

Whether more stringent capital requirements lead to reduced or to increased bank risk-taking has been discussed intensively in the academic literature. In this paper we drop the common but unrealistic assumptions that banks only issue deposits whose returns are guaranteed by a subsidised deposit insurance and that deposit insurance is free. We prove that with uninsured debt and a flat-rate deposit insurance premium the reaction of a bank to a higher capital requirement may change substantially. In some scenarios banks increase asset risk due to the enforcement of a more stringent capital requirement.     

Financial market liberalization and the pricing of idiosyncratic risk

We test the impact of idiosyncratic risk on stock returns for emerging markets that experience financial market liberalizations. Idiosyncratic risk is positively associated with returns prior to financial market liberalization, but liberalization diminishes this effect. Moreover, prior to liberalization, the number (concentration) of stocks available in the market is negatively (positively) correlated with the pricing of idiosyncratic risk. The decrease in the pricing of idiosyncratic risk can explain the reduction in the cost of capital around liberalizations. Additionally, the change in the pricing of idiosyncratic risk may be a useful measure of the success of financial market liberalization.     

国际货物贸易中的“风险”解析

随着我国对外贸易活动增多,国际贸易中的风险转移逐渐成为买卖双方关注的焦点。我国参与国际货物贸易主要依据的INCOTERMS 2000和《联合国国际货物销售合同公约》中,分别对风险转移的前提和条件以及风险转移的时间和地点作出了明确的规定。我国企业应结合自身实际情况,并参照《中华人民共和国合同法》,在国际货物贸易中对风险进行有效转移。     

International trade,risk taking and welfare

This paper shows that the gains from opening up to international trade are smaller when firms do not fully internalize downward risk. I develop a general equilibrium model with two key assumptions. First, when faced with adverse productivity shocks, employers can lay off workers without fully paying the social costs of their layoff decisions, a common feature of many institutions. Second, when opening to international trade, the elasticity of demand perceived by an industry increases. In this setup, I show that international trade induces firms to take more risk and (i) raises the equilibrium unemployment rate, (ii) increases the volatility of sectoral sales and (iii) increases welfare proportionately less than in the absence of the externality. Inducing firms to internalize the costs of layoff (Blanchard and Tirole, 2003) therefore appears even more important in a globalized world.     

Optimal bank asset and liability management with financial futures

This paper presents a model for optimal bank asset and liability management with financial futures. This model is a multiperiod linear programming model based on Markowitz portfolio theory. Given the bank's initial position, its economic forecasts, and the constraints under which it operates, the model can help a bank's senior executives determine the current and expected future balance sheet composition and financial futures position which will minimize the bank's operating risks and which will meet the bank's expected profits goal with the minimum possible profits risk. By parametrically varying the expected profits goal, the model will generate the set of risk-return efficient decisions. Bankers need then examine only the set of efficient decisions to choose their optimal solution. A simplified example is used to illustrate the application of our model and to demonstrate that banks that use financial futures in asset and liability management can obtain better results than banks that do not use financial futures.