A through-the-cycle model for retail lending economic capital

Problems in the US mortgage industry have shown weaknesses in the standard regulatory and economic capital approaches. Although a significant amount of discussion is occurring around how to segment portfolios or predict key variables in order to better fit the existing formulas, we believe that a re-examination of existing capital formulas with respect to credit risk is required.In this paper we develop a formula which is specifically tuned to the dynamics of retail loan portfolios and which could be employed for either regulatory capital or economic capital. The key advantages of this approach are that it is based upon a much more accurate model of retail loan defaults, does not require any new data feeds, is based upon readily available modeling frameworks, and can adapt to portfolio changes such as those observed in the US mortgage crisis.     

Rethinking the role of private capital in infrastructure PPPs: the experience of Ontario,Canada

Private capital has become a significant feature of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs) on the premise that it incentivizes diligent risk management among private partners. This paper evaluates this claim by examining the PPP programme in Ontario, Canada, where the amount of long-term private capital in PPPs has been reduced. The paper shows that decreasing the amount of private capital after construction does not undermine performance, while producing cost savings for governments. This was achieved by deploying sophisticated procurement and monitoring strategies. These findings suggest that private capital is one of several tools available to achieve positive value for money in PPPs.     

浅谈零售创新

零售创新是在现今激烈竞争市场下零售经营者通过一系列的变革挖掘盈利机会.主要特征表现在经营理念的科学性、营销策划的持续性、来店顾客的参与性.     

中国机场零售业的发展

中国机场零售业 是一座有待深入挖掘的金矿 2002～2006年,中国机场(不含港、澳、台)服务收入年均增长4.4%,大大低于旅客吞吐量增长率(1 8%),这在很大程度说明非航空性业务收入增长缓慢.     

商誉会计问题的再思考

笔者认为商誉最基本的特征是它与企业的不可分割性,归根结底是源于企业的人力资源。但是商誉并非是对人力资源的反映,商誉是企业的人力资源与非人力资源相结合后所产生的一种共生资源。笔者主张对自创商誉采用边确认边摊销的方法,并且建议在确认摊销过程中采用避开损益表的方法。在计量方面,倾向以超额利润的现值来计量商誉,并且由于超额利润的获得不完全来自商誉,所以在量化商誉时应对估计的超额利润进行一定幅度的调整。     

The economics of retail firms

This paper identifies retail firms as an economic institution which delivers explicit products or services to consumer together with a variety of distribution services that determine the levels of distribution costs experienced by consumers in their purchase activities. The demand for the retailer's product is derived from a household production model in which the levels of distribution services provided by the retailer play the role of fixed inputs in the household's production functions. The supply of the retailer's product is derived from a joint cost function which is non-decreasing in the levels of distribution services provided. Profit-maximizing behavior in monopolistically competive markets shows that retail firms have special economic incentives to become complex organizations by integrating backwards, offering multiple explicit products and operating in more than one market. In addition, monopolistically competitive retail firms in long-run equilibrium will exhibit excess capacity, price dispersion and product choice in distribution services.     

Concentration of competing retail stores

The geographical concentration of stores that sell similar commodities is analyzed using a two-dimensional spatial competition model. A higher concentration of stores attracts more consumers with taste uncertainty and low price expectations (a market-size effect), while it leads to fiercer price competition (a price-cutting effect). Our model is general enough to allow for the coexistence of multiple (possibly) asymmetric clusters of stores. We provide sufficient conditions for the nonemptiness of equilibrium store location choices in pure strategies. Through numerical examples, we illustrate the trade-off between the market-size and price-cutting effects, and provide agglomeration patterns of stores in special cases.     

美国的服装零售系统给予中国的借鉴

1.国内服装零售系统的现状分析 所谓服装零售系统是指将服装及其所有权转移到消费者的所有活动的一系列组织机构.服装零售系统不仅包括大量的零售商,还包括批发商、代理商等.     

Environmental selection and retail change

In Finland and the other Nordic countries the debate on structural change in retail trade has been mainly concentrated at the macro-level. Reasons for the changes have been sought in the economic, technological and social structures, and in changes in these structures. Committees and others connected with community planning have played a central role in the debate. Considering the extent of the debate, there has been relatively little real research, and the various studies have generally been based on a limited number of variables.In view of the social importance of retail trade, it might seem surprising that researchers have shown so little interest in the structural changes in retail trade and in the results of such changes. The explanation probably lies in the lack of theory, and maybe also in problems connected with the availability of material.Research now needs to focus more on individual stores. This article presents a study intended to re-focus the debate on structural change in retail trade by studying the reasons for the closure or survival of operations in the rural store. The results emphasize external factors: the environment selects those stores that are best suited to its purposes.     

Concentration of competing retail stores

The geographical concentration of stores that sell similar commodities is analyzed using a two-dimensional spatial competition model. A higher concentration of stores attracts more consumers with taste uncertainty and low price expectations (a market-size effect), while it leads to fiercer price competition (a price-cutting effect). Our model is general enough to allow for the coexistence of multiple (possibly) asymmetric clusters of stores. We provide sufficient conditions for the nonemptiness of equilibrium store location choices in pure strategies. Through numerical examples, we illustrate the trade-off between the market-size and price-cutting effects, and provide agglomeration patterns of stores in special cases.     

Contingent capital,capital structure and investment

We examine the interaction between investment and financing policies in a dynamic model for a firm with existing assets-in-place and a growth option, of which investment cost is financed with equity and contingent convertible bonds (CoCos). We attempt to clarify how CoCos impact on investment timing, capital structure and inefficiencies arising from debt overhang and asset substitution. We show that there is a conversion ratio (the fraction of equity allocated to CoCo holders upon conversion) to eliminate the inefficiencies. Our conclusions predict that debt leverage decreases with investment option payoff factor and the average appreciation rate of the cash flow. In contrast to traditional corporate finance theory saying that a firm's value decreases globally with business risk, our model indicates that it might first decrease and then increase with asset volatility.     

中国零售业将大浪淘沙——麦肯锡全球董事陈有钢谈零售市场增长模式和创新机遇

过去十多年里,多个现代零售业态在中国经历了从无到有、从小到大的快速发展。但这种快速发展是基于一种简单的业态引进、开店扩张的粗放式增长。时至今日,这种增长模式已缺乏动力。如何打破困局,探索可持续的长期增长模式并寻求创新发展机遇,已成为对每一家领先零售商都棘手的战略难题。麦肯锡公司全球董事陈有钢分析了中国零售业竞争环境的独特性和零售商目前面临的瓶颈挑战,     

Rethinking Institutions and Organizations

In this Point–Counterpoint article we argue that institutional scholarship has become overly concerned with explaining institutions and institutional processes, notably at the level of the organization field, rather than with using them to explain and understand organizations. Especially missing is an attempt to gain a coherent, holistic account of how organizations are structured and managed. We also argue that when institutional theory does give attention to organizations it inappropriately treats them as though they are the same, or at least as though any differences are irrelevant for purposes of theory. We propose a return to the study of organizations with an emphasis upon comparative analysis, and suggest the institutional logics perspective as an appropriate means for doing so.     

Determinants of retail sales in SMSAs

This paper develops a theoretical model to explain consumer behavior in the context of spatially extensive retail markets. Several socio-economic variables influencing total and per capita retail sales are identified and their effects on sales are predicted. The theoretical framework presented in this paper serves to link location theoretic arguments to the retail trade arena and to provide a guideline for the empirical work reported. The empirical work encompasses nine retail trade sectors plus retailing in the aggregate. Good results are obtained for total sales and credible results for per capita sales using data from 229 United States SMSAs.     

Considerations of a retail forecasting practitioner

Forecasts can be used in an extraordinarily diverse range of ways across many domains in which forecasting practitioners work continuously towards improving their forecasts. Each of these domains may require the analysis of different kinds of inputs and special considerations. Even within a given domain, such as retail, there may be many similar use cases of the same kind of forecast, which can lead to practitioners making different decisions. This paper discusses several of the important decision points that practitioners must work through and uses item-level sales forecasting in the retail domain as leveraged by pricing and inventory management as examples of the different paths that may be taken. It considers how each use can lead to a different forecasting objective, and a corresponding focus on different error metrics. In addition, there are several tradeoffs in the forecasting methods that are used to meet each of the objectives best, including the kinds of models used, the running time speed, and forecast accuracy requirements.     

Forecasting retail sales using alternative models

This paper explores the issues associated with adapting forecasting techniques used by manufacturers to produce accurate forecasts for retail sales. A case study is presented that is developed using a retail situation because retailers often view their sales forecasting problems as being very different from a manufacturer's problems. Sales volumes are dramatically impacted by competitor promotional actions, discounts, store promotions and weather. Finally, consumption holidays like Christmas, Easter, Mother's day, have a large impact on sales as well as back to school shopping. The findings in this paper indicate that forecasting retail sales can be accomplished with a high degree of accuracy.     

Human capital and the internationalisation of venture capital firms

We examine the neglected area of internationalisation by VCs. Using a representative sample of 195 VCs, we show that the decision of a European VC firm to invest internationally is driven by its human resources. Having more VC executives in general and more VC executives with previous international experience in specific, results in a higher probability of investing internationally. In contrast, more VC executives with experience in the VC industry or with an engineering background lead to a higher probability of remaining domestic.     

An econometric model of a retail firm

Existing models of retail resource allocation generally specify response functions in a somewhat ad hoc manner. These are not usually derived from an explicit model of consumer maximization, and they generally do not explicitly consider the supply side of the market. This paper shows how the model of Ehrlich and Fisher (1982) can be used to provide insights into the proper specification of these functions. We illustrate the application of this model on data from a retail chain; our application extends work in Ratchford and Stoops (1988) to the demand side of the market. Potential areas of application of the model are to understanding the demand for labor and advertising services by consumers, and to the measurement of retail productivity.