The Term Structure of Reserve Durations and the Duration of Aggregate Reserves

Estimating the duration gap of a life insurer demands the knowledge on the durations of liabilities and assets. The literature analyzed the durations of assets extensively but rendered limited analyses on the durations of insurance liabilities. This article calculated the reserve durations for individual policies and estimated the duration of the aggregate reserves. The results showed that the duration of the policy reserve might be negative and/or have a large figure. They further revealed an interesting pattern of the reserve duration with respect to the policy's time to maturity. A term structure with abnormal durations, however, does not result in an abnormal duration of the aggregate reserves.     

增值税改革对地方税收收入影响"最小化"的对策选择

在全国范围内推行增值税改革的模式在学界大致有三种:第一种是以目前东北三省试点转型增值税为蓝本,在所有行业对生产用机器设备全额抵扣的改革模式;第二种是在第一种基础上扩大抵扣范围,对所购全部固定资产包括机器设备和房屋建筑一次性抵扣,即消费性增值税改革模式;第三种是进一步扩大增值税征收范围,对产品的全部流转环节产生增值额,不分行业全部实行增值税,完善增值税征收链条的改革模式。本文主要从增值税转型改革在全国范围推开后,对地方税收的长、短期影响以及如何兼顾中央和地方利益这一角度进行探讨。笔者认为,这三种税改模式各存…     

法定存款准备金率的调整对我国股票市场影响效应的实证研究

作为货币政策的三大基本工具之一,法定存款准备金率一向被认为对于货币供给量有着强烈的收缩能力,在国外通常不会轻易使用。但我国进入2006年以来,中国人民银行频繁动作,短短几年间调整达24次之多。为何我国会如此频繁使用这一工具？这种政策的调整对股票市场影响如何？股票市场这一传导渠道是否畅通？针对这一系列问题,本文采用事件研究法、干预分析模型与GARCH簇模型相结合对2006年以来法定存款准备金率的24次调整对股票市场的影响进行了实证分析。研究发现：从短期来看,法定存款准备金率的调整对我国股市的影响非常微弱;但对银行板块却有比较显著的公告效应,并且这种效应具有一定的滞后性。同时对同等幅度的政策调整,银行板块的反应比大盘更为剧烈。从长期来看,法定存款准备金率的调整对股票市场及银行板块的影响是长期存在的。从波动性的反应来看,法定存款准备金率的调整能有效降低银行板块股价的波动性,但对整个大盘而言则影响甚微。     

The Impact of the Secondary Market on Life Insurers' Surrender Profits

Life insurers often claim that the life settlement industry reduces their surrender profits and leads to an adverse shift in their portfolio of insured risks; that is, high risks remain in the portfolio instead of surrendering. In this article, we aim to quantify the effect of altered surrender behavior––subject to the health status of an insured––in a portfolio of life insurance contracts on the surrender profits of primary insurers. Our model includes mortality heterogeneity by applying a stochastic frailty factor to a mortality table. We additionally analyze the impact of the premium payment method by comparing results for annual and single premium payments.     

美联储停止缩表的原因、影响及中国对策

近期美联储停止缩表引起广泛关注。美联储停止缩表主要有以下几个原因:一是货币需求大幅上升,二是美联储控制短期利率的能力出现下降,三是美国经济前景存在不确定性。此外,美联储停止缩表还有助于继续发挥财政作用、改善货币政策传导效率、降低污名效应、降低私人部门安全资产的供应以及降低对美联储信用风险和银行清算风险。美联储停止缩表对美国和中国都会产生十分广泛的影响。对美国的影响主要有:资产价格将获得支撑、投资可能出现过热、通胀可能出现阶段性上升、金融风险可能加大、美联储独立性可能受到影响、可能加剧收益率曲线倒挂;对中国的影响主要有:人民币汇率压力有望缓解、资产价格可能上升、短期资本流入可能增多。因此,中国货币政策应保持定力,密切关注国际资本流动趋势的变化,防范资产价格暴涨风险,同时,应加强人民币汇率风险管理。     

Path Dependent Options: The Case of Lookback Options

Lookback options are path dependent contingent claims whose payoffs depend on the extrema of a given security's price over a certain period of time. Using probabilistic tools, we derive explicit formulas for various European lookback options, and provide some results about their American counterparts.     

The Valuation of Options on Futures Contracts

Rational restrictions are derived for the values of American options on futures contracts. For these options, the optimal policy, in general, involves premature exercise. A model is developed for valuing options on futures contracts in a constant interest rate setting. Despite the fact that premature exercise may be optimal, the value of this American feature appears to be small and a European formula due to Black serves as a useful approximation. Finally, a model is developed to value these options in a world with stochastic interest rates. It is shown that the pricing errors caused by ignoring the location of the interest rate (relative to its long-run mean) range from ?5% to 7%, when the current rate is ±200 basis points from its long-run value. The role of interest rate expectations is, therefore, crucial to the valuation. Optimal exercise policies are found from numerical methods for both models.     

Options on the Spot and Options on Futures

This paper analyzes and compares the valuation of two types of options that relate to the same asset: options on the asset itself and options on the futures on the asset. The early exercise privilege plays a central role in explaining the differences between the values of the two options. It is shown that in the case of a cash instrument that does not make interim payments, such as gold, the value of a call option on the spot is smaller than the call option on the futures contract; the opposite is true for put options. The early exercise boundaries, which characterize when it pays to exercise, are also compared and analyzed.     

楼宇按揭险退保风险的现金流动研究

在对楼宇按揭业务的退保现象进行理论剖析之后,着重构建现金流动模型并进行相关测算,由测算结果得出以下结论和业务建议:一是在同一手续费水平下,保险期限越长,保险公司可容忍的最大退保率(年度概念)越低;二是在相同的保险期限条件下,手续费比例越高,保险公司可容忍的最大退保率越低;三是在损失率较低的条件下,保险公司可以接受的零利润点退保率还是比较高的.     

The Price of Options Illiquidity

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of illiquidity on the value of currency options. We use a unique dataset that allows us to explore this issue in special circumstances where options are issued by a central bank and are not traded prior to maturity. The value of these options is compared to similar options traded on the exchange. We find that the nontradable options are priced about 21 percent less than the exchange-traded options. This gap cannot be arbitraged away due to transactions costs and the risk that the exchange rate will change during the bidding process.     

The Valuation of Volatility Options

This paper examines the valuation of European- and American-style volatilityoptions based on a general equilibrium stochastic volatility framework.Properties of the optimal exercise region and of the option price areprovided when volatility follows a general diffusion process. Explicitvaluation formulas are derived in four particular cases. Emphasis is placedon the MRLP (mean-reverting in the log) volatility model which has receivedconsiderable empirical support. In this context we examine the propertiesand hedging behavior of volatility options. Unlike American options,European call options on volatility are found to display concavity at highlevels of volatility.     

The Value of Wildcard Options

Wildcard options are embedded in many derivative contracts. They arise when the settlement price of the contract is established before the time at which the wildcard option holder must declare his intention to make or accept delivery and the exercise of the wildcard option closes out the underlying asset position. This paper provides a simple method for valuing wildcard options and illustrates the technique by valuing the sequence of wildcard options embedded in the S&P 100 index (OEX) option contract. The results show that wildcard options can account for an economically significant fraction of OEX option value.     

The Effect of Risk Aversion and Loss Aversion on Equity-Linked Life Insurance With Surrender Guarantees

We price equity-linked life insurance with surrender guarantees and account for risk preferences in the form of risk-averse and loss-averse policyholders in continuous time. Risk-averse policyholders surrender their policy for higher equity index values. Compared to optimally surrendered policies, this behavior creates substantial policy value losses. In contrast, loss-averse policyholders surrender once the surrender benefit realizes a gain but keep under-performing policies. This disposition effect reduces the policy value relative to both optimally surrendered policies and policies surrendered by risk-averse policyholders. Insurers in competitive markets need to estimate their policyholders’ risk preferences accurately.     

The Pricing of Options on Assets with Stochastic Volatilities

One option-pricing problem that has hitherto been unsolved is the pricing of a European call on an asset that has a stochastic volatility. This paper examines this problem. The option price is determined in series form for the case in which the stochastic volatility is independent of the stock price. Numerical solutions are also produced for the case in which the volatility is correlated with the stock price. It is found that the Black-Scholes price frequently overprices options and that the degree of overpricing increases with the time to maturity.     

人民币国际化的现实选择

美国金融危机的爆发,加速了国际贷币体系的改革。随着近年来人民币国际地位的日益提升,目前关于人民币国际化的呼声越来越高。但货币国际化有利有弊。孰轻孰重取决于多方因素。本文客观分析了人民币国际化对我国可能产生的影响,并就审慎推动人民币国际化进程提出了相关建议。     

数据大集中对金融统计工作的影响

我国银行业数据大集中进程,为我国金融统计的数据质量、金融统计业务创新带来了机遇,同时也对金融统计标准和规范、金融统计风险防范、金融统计人员素质的提高带来了挑战。因此,应在银行业数据大集中条件下,规范现有的金融统计指标体系、培养高素质金融统计队伍、完善金融统计服务功能、防范金融统计的系统性风险。     

The Effect of Executive Stock Options on Corporate Innovative Activities

This study investigates whether the implicit optionality of executive stock options (ESOs) induce managers to undertake innovative activities associated with various types of risk. We find ESO risk incentive (vega) to be positively correlated with all types of corporate innovations. We also find greater ESO risk incentive effects for the product‐related innovative activities that are associated more with systematic risk than idiosyncratic risk. Finally, we document the following pecking order for the ESO risk incentive effects: improved product, new product, alliance, and new research and development. Our results suggest that executives have more incentive to invest in projects with higher systematic risk.