The open approach to flood control: the way to the future in Bangladesh

This paper offers a critique of the cordon approach to flood control that Bangladesh has been pursuing for several decades now. It shows how this approach fails to solve the flood problem, deprives the floodplains from benefits of regular river-inundation, creates a risky situation for the inhabitants inside cordons, brings in new problems of drainage and sanitation, and leads to huge waste of resources. The paper then argues for the open approach to flood control as the way to the future. The main components of this approach are: re-excavation of river beds and other surface water bodies, minimization of obstruction on floodplains, increasing the elevation of rural and urban dwellings, restoration of waterways, and promotion of rural settlement consolidation around permanent flood shelters. The paper shows in what ways the open approach to flood control is superior to the cordon approach.     

运用债务重组手段处置金融不良资产的实例研究

债务重组已成为我国的国有资产管理公司处置金融不良资产的重要手段.本文概述了债务重组的定义和方式,探讨了以债务重组手段处置金融不良资产的优势以及风险防控等值得注意的问题,并对一个处置实例进行了具体分析,总结了项目运作的经验,以供参考.     

我国税收征管方式的博弈分析

文章对我国基本的税收征管方式采用博弈论的方法进行分析。分别求出在这种征管方式下,任务博弈、礼品博弈、声誉博弈的均衡解。进一步求出征管博弈在任务博弈、礼品博弈、声誉博弈三个关联博弈约束条件下的子博弈精炼纳什均衡。指出这种征管方式存在的弊端,并依据分析所得结论提出改进这种征管方式的建议。     

Change by whom? Four ways of adding actors and governance in backcasting studies

There is a lack of actors and governance in backcasting studies. Given that such studies typically are used to explore and promote change, the absence of change agents and their institutions is a shortcoming. This paper presents four approaches to include actors and governance as objects of study in backcasting studies; the stakeholder analysis approach, the social network approach, the governance model approach, and the policy and change approach. In the paper a scenario study of the greening of private transport in Bromma, Stockholm is used as example.     

Struggling over the direction of Caribbean medicinal plant research

This paper briefly outlines the existing research approach taken to document medicinal plants; an alternative approach promoted by TRAMIL (Traditional Medicine in the Islands); the current bioprospecting environment; the major players and stakes involved and a vision for future research into ethnomedicine. The paper then documents an attempt to create a shared vision of an approach to medicinal plants research and use that is sustainable and equitable to all the stakeholders.     

A Unified Approach for Pricing Contingent Claims on Multiple Term Structures

This paper provides a unified approach for pricing contingent claims on multiple term structures using a foreign currency analogy. All existing option pricing applications are seen to be special cases of this unified approach. This approach is used to price options on financial securities subject to credit risk.     

Financial Supervision: Integrated or Specialized?The case of Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper discusses the relative merits of the two approaches of financial regulation and supervision for the case of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In doing so, it reviews the main arguments advanced in the specialized literature in pro and against of each approach. All the theoretical arguments are contrasted with available country experiences from around the world and discussed with a focus on the Latin American and Caribbean countries. A methodology to analyze the efficacy and the efficiency of each approach in meeting the main objectives of financial regulation is also provided. The paper concludes that in the present circumstances, the net benefits of adopting an integrated approach probably exceed the net benefits stemming from the adoption of a specialized approach for most of the countries in the region.     

Sub-sequence incidence analysis within series of Bernoulli trials: application in characterisation of time series dynamics

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a new and widely applicable nonparametric approach to the characterisation of time series dynamics. The approach involves analysis of the incidence of occurrence of patterns in the direction of movement of the series, and may readily be applied to time series data measured on any scale. The paper includes derivations of analytic forms for two (infinite) families of distributions under the null hypothesis of random behaviour, and of a useful analytic form for the generation of the moments of these distributions. The distributions are asymptotically normal, so allowing for straightforward application of the approach presented in the paper too long series of high frequency and/or extended time period data. Areas of application in finance and accounting are suggested.     

Stochastic dominance analysis of CTA funds

In this paper, we employ the stochastic dominance (SD) approach to rank the performance of commodity trading advisors (CTA) funds. An advantage of this approach is that it alleviates the problems that can arise if CTA returns are not normally distributed by utilizing the entire returns distribution. We find both first-order and higher-order SD relationships amongst the CTA funds and conclude that investors are better off investing in the first-order dominant funds to maximize their expected utilities and expected wealth. However, for higher-order dominant CTAs, risk-averse investors can maximize their expected utilities but not their expected wealth. In addition to the advantages of the SD approach in the case of non-normal returns, the paper concludes that the approach is more appropriate compared with traditional approaches as a filter in the CTA selection process as it provides meaningful economic interpretation of the results.     

Linear models for minimizing misclassification costs in bankruptcy prediction

This paper illustrates how a misclassification cost matrix can be incorporated into an evolutionary classification system for bankruptcy prediction. Most classification systems for predicting bankruptcy have attempted to minimize misclassifications. The minimizing misclassification approach assumes that Type I and Type II error costs for misclassifications are equal. There is evidence that these costs are not equal and incorporating costs into the classification systems can lead to better and more desirable results. In this paper, we use the principles of evolution to develop and test a genetic algorithm (GA) based approach that incorporates the asymmetric Type I and Type II error costs. Using simulated and real-life bankruptcy data, we compare the results of our proposed approach with three linear approaches: statistical linear discriminant analysis (LDA), a goal programming approach, and a GA-based classification approach that does not incorporate the asymmetric misclassification costs. Our results indicate that the proposed approach, incorporating Type I and Type II error costs, results in lower misclassification costs when compared to LDA and GA approaches that do not incorporate misclassification costs. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Generalized Extreme Value Approach to Financial Risk Measurement

This paper develops an unconditional and conditional extreme value approach to calculating value at risk (VaR), and shows that the maximum likely loss of financial institutions can be more accurately estimated using the statistical theory of extremes. The new approach is based on the distribution of extreme returns instead of the distribution of all returns and provides good predictions of catastrophic market risks. Both the in-sample and out-of-sample performance results indicate that the Box–Cox generalized extreme value distribution introduced in the paper performs surprisingly well in capturing both the rate of occurrence and the extent of extreme events in financial markets. The new approach yields more precise VaR estimates than the normal and skewed t distributions.     

Scope of Auditors' Liability,Audit Quality,and Capital Investment

One of the fundamental issues in the discussion of auditors' liability is to whom auditors should be held liable for ordinary negligence under common law. Three judicial viewpoints prevail: the restrictive privity approach, the more liberal Restatement approach, and the most liberal foreseeability approach. To compare these three approaches from an efficiency perspective, this paper develops a model that features an owner-managed firm, an independent auditor, a continuum of unrelated lenders, and an impartial court. Double effort-incentive problems appear for the firm and the auditor. The firm has an additional incentive problem due to the sequential nature of its borrowing. This paper shows that the effort-incentive problem and the sequential borrowing problem of the firm render unambiguous improvements in audit effort/quality, capital investment, and social welfare as the judicial approach governing the scope of auditors' liability becomes more conservative.     

Interest and reaction time analysis of credit card offers: Managerial implications of high level research procedures

This paper presents a new approach to the optimisation of direct mail offers. Conjoint measurement will be used to identify two aspects of an offer: the degree of interest; and the speed at which an individual processes the information. The approach allows the marketer to create offers that are simultaneously attractive to customers and easy to understand. The approach is illustrated by a credit card case study.     

Empirical evaluation of accounting programs: a proposed factor-analytic approach

In the context of recommending and implementing change in accounting education, the role played by the evaluation of accounting programs cannot be ignored. In fact, program evaluation and continuous improvement are also a critical accreditation requirement of the AACSB. While accounting curriculum reviews, standardized examinations, portfolio analysis, student surveys, alumni surveys, employer\recruiter surveys, and interviews, discussions and observations are important, they are not the only means of evaluating accounting programs. The objective of this paper is to propose and illustrate the factor-analytic approach as an addition to the existing arsenal of evaluation methods. This approach, which uses examination results, can add a new, objective and empirical dimension and make the evaluation more comprehensive. This paper explains the rationale for and presents the proposed factor-analytic approach to evaluating accounting programs. It also illustrates the application of the proposed approach via a Singapore case study. Finally, limitations of the proposed factor-analytic approach to evaluating accounting programs are discussed, with suggestions for future research.     

The implications of e-commerce for strategy: UK case studies

In this paper, four case studies of retail financial services companies involved in Internet marketing of their services are investigated. The approaches taken range from a fully integrated approach, a stand-alone approach separate from the mainstream of the company's business, an experimental approach and an approach that can only be described as ‘reluctant’. The cases demonstrate the critical role of senior management, the possible limitations of market intelligence as a guide to action, the need to focus on resources and capabilities, and the requirement for creativity in strategy.     

Estimating the cross-sectional market response to an endogenous event: Naked vs. underwritten calls of convertible bonds

The literature on conditional event studies advocates the use of endogenous switching models to analyze cross-sectional variation in the stock market's response to corporate announcements of endogenous events. This paper proposes the use of a flexible Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach for estimating such models. The Bayesian MCMC approach offers several advantages over the Heckman–Lee two-stage estimation approach. In particular, analysis of the “treatment effect” (the difference between the observed and counter-factual outcomes) controls for the endogeneity of the firm's choice. As an application, the paper examines the market's response to naked and underwritten calls of convertible bonds. The paper reports evidence that the market's response to calls of convertible bonds is correlated with the private information partially revealed by the firm's choice of call type. However, although the average treatment effect associated with an underwritten call is negative, it is not significantly different from zero.     

国际货币基金组织CGER方法介绍及评述

本文介绍了国际货币基金组织CGER汇率评估方法产生的背景以及CGER的三种汇率评估方法:宏观经济均衡法、均衡实际有效汇率法和外部可持续法。作者从样本结构、计量技术及全球一致性等方面分析了三种方法的贡献和缺陷以及CGER汇率评估对中国的影响,预测了CGER方法运用于未来国际汇率评估的趋势。     

大宗商品价格波动与中国信贷市场运行分析

本文基于LA-VAR方法和CCF方法,对大宗商品价格与中国银行信贷市场主要变量之间的关系进行因果检验。检验结果显示:在5%的显著性水平上,大宗商品价格波动是存贷比、短期贷款利差、中长期贷款利差、总贷款余额、短期贷款余额变动的单方向原因。作者利用协整检验、VEC模型、脉冲响应和方差分解技术,分析了大宗商品价格波动对中国商业银行信贷市场的静态与动态影响。本文针对中国商业银行信贷市场的监管提出了两条政策建议:一是密切关注大宗商品价格并稳定大宗商品价格波动区间,二是货币政策的制定过程应纳入大宗商品价格。     

A general class of distortion operators for pricing contingent claims with applications to CAT bonds

ABSTRACT

The current paper provides a general approach to construct distortion operators that can price financial and insurance risks. Our approach generalizes the (Wang 2000) transform and recovers multiple distortions proposed in the literature as particular cases. This approach enables designing distortions that are consistent with various pricing principles used in finance and insurance such as no-arbitrage models, equilibrium models and actuarial premium calculation principles. Such distortions allow for the incorporation of risk-aversion, distribution features (e.g. skewness and kurtosis) and other considerations that are relevant to price contingent claims. The pricing performance of multiple distortions obtained through our approach is assessed on CAT bonds data. The current paper is the first to provide evidence that jump-diffusion models are appropriate for CAT bonds pricing, and that natural disaster aversion impacts empirical prices. A simpler distortion based on a distribution mixture is finally proposed for CAT bonds pricing to facilitate the implementation.     

A New Cluster-Based Financial Vulnerability Indicator and Its Application to Household Stress Testing in Croatia

In this paper, we propose a new approach to household financial vulnerability analysis employing cluster technique in the identification of potentially vulnerable households. The cluster-based vulnerability indicator is applied to stress testing with the specific aim of assessing the extent to which the prolonged economic downturn following the Great Recession of 2008–9 hurt indebted households in Croatia. We compare the results based on the new approach with those based on traditional methods. Interest rate shocks have a stronger effect on household vulnerability in the traditional approach, whereas decrease in employment is found to be more disruptive in the cluster-based approach.