An application of models of speculative behaviour to oil prices

We estimate three different models of speculative behaviour using oil price data. Our findings provide support for the claim by Phillips and Yu (2011) and Gilbert (2010) that a bubble in oil prices existed for a short period in 2008.     

Estimating a continuous time portfolio selection model: An application with UK data

An empirical assessment of a continuous time portfolio selection model is studied for the UK economy between 1970 and 1996. The estimates obtained from this study are both statistically significant and consistent with the model's predictions. The estimate of risk aversion parameter refers to low risk aversion which is consistent with the optimal risky asset holding parameter. Furthermore, the estimated parameters of the asset pricing relationship are also found to be consistent with the historical values of the stock prices. First version received: February 1998/final version received: March 1999     

An application of DPSIR framework to identify issues of pollinator loss

This paper is an attempt to apply the Driving forces–Pressures–State–Impact–Responses (DPSIR) framework to identify the issues of pollinator loss. The linkages between the significant pressures on insect pollinators, their underlying socio-economic driving forces and responses, with the focus on Europe, are addressed in the study. A review of literature revealed the shortage of empirical studies that prove direct links between policy responses and specific pressures on the pollinators. Based on written evidence and expert judgement, land use practices and the use of agrochemicals were regarded as the most significant pressures on different functional groups of pollinators. As demonstrated in the study, agricultural and rural development policy has been the key driving force of these pressures. The application of the DPSIR framework proved to be useful in identifying the pathway of human pressures on pollinators. The study also concludes that there is further need for specific empirical research on the effects and effectiveness of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) measures (agri-environment measures in particular) to support farming practices that facilitate the protection of the environment and the prevention of pollinator loss.     

A novel nonlinear value-at-risk method for modeling risk of option portfolio with multivariate mixture of normal distributions

This paper proposes a novel nonlinear model for calculating Value-at-Risk (VaR) when the market risk factors of an option portfolio are heavy-tailed. A multivariate mixture of normal distributions is used to depict the heavy-tailed market risk factors and accordingly a closed form expression for the moment generating function that can reflect the change in option portfolio value can be derived. Moreover, in order to make use of the correlation between the characteristic function and the moment generating function, Fourier-Inversion method and adaptive Simpson rule with iterative algorithm of numerical integration into the nonlinear VaR model for option portfolio are applied for calculation of VaR values of option portfolio. VaR values of option portfolio obtained from different methods are compared. Numerical results of Fourier-Inversion method and Monte Carlo simulation method show that high accuracy VaR values can be obtained when risk factors have multivariate mixture of normal distributions than when they have normal distributions. Moreover, VaR values obtained by using the Fourier-Inversion method are not obviously different from VaR values obtained by using Monte Carlo simulation when market risk factors have normal distributions or multivariate mixture of normal distributions. However, the speed of computation is obviously faster when using Fourier-Inversion method, than when using Monte Carlo simulation method. Besides, Cornish Fisher method is faster and simpler than Monte Carlo simulation method or Fourier-Inversion method. However, this method does not offer high accuracy and cannot be used to calculate VaR values of option portfolio when market risk factors have heavy-tailed distributions.     

An alternative lattice algorithm for option pricing

This paper proposes a dimension reduction technique on lattice model, an extension of the discrete CRR （1979） model, for option pricing. Applications are demonstrated on pricing some vulnerable options with the payoff functions including two stochastic processes： the underlying stock price and the assets value of the option writer. Instead of building a bivariate tree structure for these correlated processes, a univariate binomial tree for the underlying stock price is only constructed. The proposed univariate binomial tree model is sufficient to undertake, though two underlying assets are involved.     

Effects of background risks on cautiousness with an application to a portfolio choice problem

We provide necessary and sufficient conditions on an individual's expected utility function under which any zero-mean idiosyncratic risk increases cautiousness (the derivative of the reciprocal of the absolute risk aversion), which is the key determinant for this individual's demand for options and portfolio insurance.     

A framework for the decomposition of poverty differences with an application to poverty differences between countries

We propose an Oaxaca-Blinder-like decomposition of poverty differences. The decomposition is based on a parametric model of the income distribution and can be used to decompose differences in poverty rates across countries or years. Poverty differences are decomposed into differences in the underlying distribution of poverty-relevant characteristics and differences in the incidence of poverty conditional on these characteristics. We illustrate our method by comparing levels and patterns of relative poverty in the USA, Great Britain and Germany during the 1990s. Our results suggest that the higher aggregate poverty rates in the USA and in Britain relative to Germany were mostly accounted for by higher poverty rates conditional on characteristics, which were partly offset by a more favourable distribution of poverty-relevant characteristics, in particular higher employment rates.This paper is part of the research programme of the TMR Network ‘Living Standards, Inequality and Taxation’. Financial support from the European Union (Contract #ERBFMRXCT980248), the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the University of Essex, and the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG) is gratefully acknowledged. The data used in this study were made available by Cornell University (Cross-National Equivalent File), the University of Michigan (Panel Study of Income Dynamics), the UK Data Archive (British Household Panel Survey), and the German Institute for Economic Research (German Socio-Economic Panel). Martin Biewen would like to thank the Institute for European Studies and the Department for Policy and Management at Cornell University, in particular Jonas Pontusson, Richard Burkhauser and Dean Lillard, for their hospitality and support. We are also grateful for comments by Bernd Fitzenberger, Joachim Winter, Christoph M. Schmidt, an anonymous referee and seminar participants in Essex, Heidelberg and Mannheim. Last but not least, we thank Nick Cox for providing us with updated versions of his Stata programs for drawing quantile plots.First version received: May 2003/Final version received: December: 2003     

A generalized method of moments estimator for a spatial model with moving average errors, with application to real estate prices

This paper proposes a new GMM estimator for spatial regression models with moving average errors. Monte Carlo results are given which suggest that the GMM estimates are consistent and robust to non-normality, and the Bootstrap method is suggested as a way of testing the significance of the moving average parameter. The estimator is applied in a model of English real estate prices, in which the concepts of displaced demand and displaced supply are introduced to derive the spatial lag of prices, and the moving average error process represents spatially autocorrelated unmodelled variables.      

Internal and external exchange rate equilibrium in a cointegration framework. An application to the Spanish peseta

A simple cointegration methodology is used to compute the equilibrium real exchange rate for the peseta. The stock of foreign assets and the evolution of sectoral prices are considered to be the fundamentals for the real exchange rate. After testing for cointegration, we proceed to decompose the series into a permanent and a transitory component, following the method devised by Gonzalo and Granger. The permanent component of the real exchange rate corresponds to its (time-varying) equilibrium value, and the deviation of the actual real exchange rate from this equilibrium value gives an estimation of the degree of misalignment of the real exchange rate. By the end of the sample (1998:1), the peseta is estimated to be undervalued around 6%.     

Nontradable goods prices and per-caita income: an application to regional Korean data

A system of demand equations (given oligopolistic interdependence amon firms) is derived and estimated for two four-digit SIC code industries to explain firms' R&D behaviour through time. The two industries chosen are the perfume, cosmetic and toiletries (PCT) industry, and the drug industry. The industries chosen belong to the same two-digit SIC code classification called the Cchemical and Allied Products industry but not in the drug industry. The introduction of the R&D tax credit in 1981, however, reduced the tendency to free-ride in both industries.     

Conditions for a CAPM equilibrium with positive prices

This paper examines the conditions required to guarantee positive prices in the CAPM. Positive prices imply an upper bound on the equity premium. This upper bound depends on the degree of diversity of firms’ fundamentals, and it is independent of investors’ preferences. In economies with realistically diverse assets the only positive-price CAPM equilibrium theoretically possible is a degenerate one, with zero equity premium. Furthermore, when specific standard investors’ preferences are assumed, the CAPM equilibrium with positive prices may be altogether impossible. A possible solution to these fundamental problems may be offered by the segmented-market version of the model.     

Opportunism in labour contracting: An application of the ‘organisational failures’ framework

The ‘Markets and Hierarchies’ framework provides a basis for the analysis of employment relations. However, it fails to take the possibility of bilateral opportunism into account and in consequence exaggerates the ease of obtaining consummate cooperation. Once bilateral opportunism is admitted, the resolution of contractual problems becomes indeterminate, depending upon the preference and relative power of the parties. These preferences can be modelled,analysis of technological change issues reveals that such a model has some explanatory power. The implication of this approach is that the removal of opportunism implies relatively organisational surgery.     

A generalized framework for endogenous timing in duopoly games and an application to price-quantity competition

This paper extends the analysis of duopoly market by distinguishing two types of competition: (i) the basic form of competition where each firm is unrestricted in its choice of price and quantity and (ii) the non-basic form of competition where firms’ strategic choices over price and quantity are limited a priori. Our analysis focuses on the former rather than the latter. Under a very general setting of concave industrial revenue and asymmetric convex costs, we show that each firm typically makes more profit in the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) of the leader-follower price-quantity competition, one of the basic competition forms, than in the SPNE of the leader-follower price competition and that each firm always makes more profit under simultaneous move price-quantity competition than under simultaneous move price competition. We establish a generalized framework for endogenous timing in duopoly games which is capable of embodying and overcoming the inconsistency across the existing three frameworks in the field. We highlight the advantages of a 3-period general framework.     

担保:中小企业融资的有效选择

随着我国社会主义市场经济不断发展与深入,中小企业作为动经济增长的重要力量,吸纳社就业的主要载体,技术与机制创的有效组织形式,在我国国民经发展、社会稳定和人民生活改善起着举足轻重的作用。据国家发委统计,中国GDP和社会销售的五成以上、工业新增产值的七以上、税收的四成以上以及出口额的六成以上,都是由中小企业造的。林毅夫等人的研究表明,小企业的增长率与国民生产总的增长率有强烈正相关(简单相系数达0.867)。中小企业创造的终产品和服务的价值占全国DP比重的50%以上,提供的产技术和服务出口约占全国出口值的60%,实现利税40%以…     

An assessment of the empirical magnitude of option values for environment goods

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the magnitude of option values relative to expected surplus using a model presented by Larson and Flacco (1992). Option values and option prices are computed for both simulated data sets and actual estimates of recreation demands. Results indicate that option values engendered by price and income uncertainty are generally quite a small percent of expected surplus.     

An application of duality theory: A portfolio composition of the West-German private non-bank sector, 1968–1975

The objective of this paper is to apply the duality approach in the theory of consumer behavior for deriving demand systems to analyse the allocation of assets and liabilities of the private non-bank sector. A commodity approach is chosen where service flows of assets, physical capital and liabilities enter the direct utility function and the corresponding interest rates and price of capital enter the indirect utility function. The approach results in a system of demand and supply functions for optimal stocks consistent with utility maximization. For econometric implementation an overall model in an asset aggregate, capital and a liability aggregate is fitted first. Next, two submodels are constructed for an optimal allocation of the asset aggregate and the liability aggregate to its various components that made up the aggregate. Empirical results for time series data of the German private non-bank sector are presented.     

An economic framework for forecasting land-use and ecosystem change

This paper develops a joint econometric–simulation framework to forecast detailed empirical distributions of the spatial pattern of land-use and ecosystem change. In-sample and out-of-sample forecasting tests are used to examine the performance of the parcel-scale econometric and simulation models, and the importance of multiple forecasting challenges is assessed. The econometric–simulation method is integrated with an ecological model to generate forecasts of the probability of localized extinctions of an amphibian species. The paper demonstrates the potential of integrating economic and ecological models to generate ecological forecasts in the presence of alternative market conditions and land-use policy constraints.     

An architectural framework for roadmapping: Towards visual strategy

Since the first application of technology roadmapping in the late 1970s to support integrated product-technology planning, roadmapping concepts and techniques have been widely adopted at product, technology, company, sector and policy levels. The roadmapping approach is flexible and scalable, and can be customized to suit many different strategic and innovation contexts. However, this demands careful planning and design, including consideration of roadmap structure, process and participation.This paper explores the issues of how to design and architect roadmaps and roadmapping processes, which is crucial if the approach is to provide a framework for supporting effective dialogue and communication within and between organizations. The structure of the roadmap, and the process for developing and maintaining the roadmap, should be designed to serve the purpose for which the activity is intended to satisfy, providing a ‘common language and structure' for both development and deployment of strategy.