A continuous-time heterogeneous duopoly model with delays

In this paper, the continuous-time version with delays of the model of Tramontana (Econ Model 27(1):350–357, 2010) is presented. The stability of the equilibrium point is discussed by analyzing the distribution of roots of associated characteristic equation. It is found that combining marginal costs with time delays gives rise to different economic scenarios, where stability switches may appear and Hopf bifurcations occur within certain range of parameters.     

The yearend effect in stock returns over business cycles: A technical note

This paper provides evidence in support of the claim that the well-knownJanuary effect is influenced by the stage of the business cycle. Using monthly data for the S&P Composite Index for the period from November 1948 through December 1988 and the standard methodology for seasonal anomalies, the authors show that theJanuary effect is present during the entire period examined as well as in the expansionary phases of that period. However, its existence was not detected during the contractionary phases of that period.     

A closed-form solution for the continuous-time consumption model with endogenous labor income

In this paper, we study the consumption, labor supply, and portfolio decisions of an infinitely lived individual who receives a certain wage rate and income from investment into a risky asset and a risk-free bond. Uncertainty about labor income arises endogenously, because labor supply evolves randomly over time in response to changes in financial wealth. We derive closed-form solutions for optimal consumption, labor supply and investment strategy. We find that deferring the retirement age stimulates optimal consumption over time and discourages optimal labor supply during the working life. We also find explicitly that optimal portfolio allocation becomes more ‘conservative’ when the individual approaches his prescribed retirement age. The effects of risk-aversion coefficients on optimal decisions are examined.     

A Hotelling model with a ceiling on the stock of pollution

Environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol aim to stabilize the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which is mainly caused by the burning of nonrenewable resources such as coal. We characterize the solution to the textbook Hotelling model when there is a ceiling on the stock of emissions. We consider both increasing and decreasing demand for energy. We show that when the ceiling is binding, both the low-cost nonrenewable resource and the high-cost renewable resource may be used jointly. A key implication is that if energy demand were to decline in the long run, we may supplement energy supply through ‘clean’ renewables to meet the environmental standard, but then revert back to using only ‘dirty’ fossil fuels in the future when the ceiling has become non-binding. That is, the much heralded societal ‘transition’ to clean energy resources may be short-lived.     

Stress-testing US bank holding companies: A dynamic panel quantile regression approach

We propose an econometric framework for estimating capital shortfalls of bank holding companies (BHCs) under pre-specified macroeconomic scenarios. To capture the nonlinear dynamics of bank losses and revenues during periods of financial stress, we use a fixed effects quantile autoregressive (FE-QAR) model with exogenous macroeconomic covariates, an approach that delivers a superior out-of-sample forecasting performance relative to the standard linear framework. According to the out-of-sample forecasts, the realized net charge-offs during the 2007–09 crisis fall within the multi-step-ahead density forecasts implied by the FE-QAR model, but are frequently outside the density forecasts generated using the corresponding linear model. This difference reflects the fact that the linear specification substantially underestimates loan losses, especially for real estate loan portfolios. Employing the macroeconomic stress scenario used in CCAR 2012, we use the density forecasts generated by the FE-QAR model to simulate capital shortfalls for a panel of large BHCs. For almost all institutions in the sample, the FE-QAR model generates capital shortfalls that are considerably higher than those implied by its linear counterpart, which suggests that our approach has the potential to detect emerging vulnerabilities in the financial system.     

A nonlinear long memory model, with an application to US unemployment

Two important empirical features of US unemployment are that shocks to the series seem rather persistent and that it seems to rise faster during recessions than that it falls during expansions. To jointly capture these features of long memory and nonlinearity, we put forward a new time series model and evaluate its empirical performance. We find that the model describes the data rather well and that it outperforms related competitive models on various measures of fit.     

A long dollar fall: likelihood and consequences

• ? The dollar has tended to move in long swings over the last forty years, raising the risk that the recent decline could extend considerably further. This is not our base case, but risks do look skewed towards additional dollar weakness. Our modelling work suggests that a large further dollar slide would have significant effects on the pattern of world growth – the US and some emerging markets would gain, with other advanced economies the main losers.
• ? There have been several large multi‐year swings in the dollar over the last four decades. We identify seven such episodes since 1971 including three long declines averaging 31%, the last being in 2002‐08. Since 2017 the dollar has fallen 10%, implying a possible further considerable drop.
• ? Our dollar strength indicator, which covers a range of economic variables associated with dollar moves in the past, does not currently point to a re‐run of the dollar weakness of the 2000s. But we do expect some further near‐term dollar losses and risks to our baseline forecast look skewed to the downside, especially given the emergence of large twin deficits in the US.
• ? Should a further large dollar slump nevertheless occur, our modelling suggests large effects on the pattern of world growth. The main gainers would be commodity‐producing emerging markets (EM) benefitting from improved terms of trade, positive balance sheet and external liquidity effects and scope to ease local interest rates. Rising US yields would erode some of these gains in later years.
• ? The main initial losers would be advanced economies outside the US which would lose competitiveness. In the case of the Eurozone and Japan, undershoots of inflation targets would be likely. There could also be some other negative consequences such as stoking protectionism and creating financial bubbles in some EMs.

     

A priority assignment model for standards and conditions in a long term care survey

Presently a survey document is used in New York State to enforce Federal and State regulatory standards for long term care facilities (skilled nursing facilities and health related facilities). This document is used to establish Medicare and Medicaid certification for these facilities.

This study describes the creation of a new survey process—a first stage consisting of a screening survey followed, if necessary, by an intensive survey. A priority assignment model which utilizes the judgements of experts from the New York State Office of Health Systems Management (OHSM) has been developed. This model is employed to develop ranks, priority weights and classifications for the various standards and the Federal conditions which the standards comprise (as well as equivalent State regulations).

Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process is used to obtain the ranks and priority weights. The consistency of the experts' judgements is measured using Kendall's coefficient of agreement. An optimal split algorithm is used to subdivide the standards and conditions according to impact (high, moderate or low) on patient care, health and safety.

The results are to be used as a management tool in developing decision rules for defining the scope of the intensive survey on the basis of screening survey results.     

Poverty trap,boom and bust periods and growth. A nonlinear model for non-developed and developing countries

This work investigates the qualitative and quantitative dynamics of a Solow–Swan growth model with differential savings as proposed by Böhm and Kaas (J Econ Dyn Control 24:965–980, 2000) assuming the shifted Cobb–Douglas (SCD) production function (see Capasso et al. in Nonlinear Anal. 11:3858–3876, 2010) which makes it possible to consider the long-run dynamics of non-developed and developing countries as well as that of developed economies. The resulting model is described by a nonlinear discontinuous map generating both a poverty trap and complex dynamics. Furthermore, multistability phenomena may emerge: besides the “vicious circle of poverty”, long-run behaviours may include boom and bust periods. Complex basins can emerge, hence, economic policies trying to raise the capital per capita may fail and economies may be captured by the poverty trap.     

Capability-based governance patterns over the product life-cycle: an agent-based model

In recent literature, there is disagreement over the temporal pattern of vertical governance of firms over the product life-cycle. We use a novel neo-Schumpeterian agent-based simulation model to investigate emerging patterns of vertical governance for different levels of imitability and substitutability of capabilities. We find that, in the mature phase of the product life-cycle, firms generally prefer vertical specialization. However, in the early phase, imitability and substitutability, in interplay, determine the governance form preferred. High imitability frustrates appropriation and thereby discourages integration for synergistic advantages. However, firms need not vertically specialize: under low substitutability, incompatibilities reduce the advantages of specialization. When both substitutability and imitability are low, firms can appropriate the value of their inventions and there is no combinatorial advantage of specialization, so firms predominantly integrate. If substitutability is high and imitability is low, the combinatorial advantage of specialization balances with the synergistic advantage of integration.     

Recovery of hidden information from stock price data: A semiparametric approach

This paper proposes a new methodology for measuring announcement effect on stock returns. This methodology requires no prior specification of the event day, event, and estimation windows, and therefore is a generalization of the traditional event study methodology. The dummy variable, which indicates whether the event occurred or not, is treated as missing. The unconditional probability of abnormal return is estimated by the EM algorithm. The probability that announcement is effective and the average announcement effect are estimated by the Gibbs sampler. How the method works is demonstrated on simulated data and IBM stock price returns.     

Market efficiency, discount-rate changes, and stock returns: A long-term perspective

This paper examines the market efficiency issue by analyzing stock returns surrounding Fed announcements of discount-rate changes. Based on an analysis ofex post returns over a 58-year period, the results provide evidence of long-term market efficiency. Consistent with recent literature, the findings also reveal some predictability in return patterns where an active trading strategy based on directional reversals in the pattern of discount rate changes outperforms a passive buy-and-hold approach. The results indicate that the proposed active trading produces substantially higher risk-adjusted returns than the buy-and-hold strategy.     

Money stock targeting and money supply: A closer examination of the data

In a recent paper Mercenier and Sekkat (1988) use a linear-quadratic model to examine the willingness of a monetary authority in a small open economy to target its exchange rate. Based on their empirical results, the authors conclude that the Bank of Canada has displayed a willingness to use the money supply to target the Canada—US exchange rate. We re-examine their empirical results using a different estimation approach and with different assumptions about the forcing process of the exogeneous variables. We also extend the sample period to include more recent observations. While we find some weak evidence to support their conclusion, the results, in general, suggest that a linear-quadratic model may not be a particularly useful representation of the assumed exchange rate targeting by a monetary authority.     

QDII制度:A股市场国际化进程中的制度创新

本文认为QDII制度作为A股市场国际化进程中的一种创新,其中关于制度的投资机制和投资流程值得重点关注,同时该制度的实施可能在一定程度上对香港和内地股市造成影响。     

Frankfurt Artificial Stock Market: a microscopic stock market model with heterogeneous interacting agents in small-world communication networks

We study the relationship between communication network topologies, namely the small-world networks introduced by Watts and Strogatz, and the simulation results of an artificial stock market, here the Frankfurt Artificial Stock Market. Heterogeneous interacting agents communicate their success and trading strategy to their nearest neighbors. A process of information diffusion arises through the adaptive behavior of agents when encountering more successful strategies in their direct neighborhood. We will show that an increasing rewiring probability of the small-world network will lead to higher volatility and distortion within our simulation model. It seems probable that the spatial position of traders within a communication network affects the price building process.     

UNILOC : A uni-location model

Apart from a few notable exceptions, most literature on the three prototype location problems, p-CENTER, p-MEDIAN, and SIMPLE PLANT LOCATION, has treated these problems individually. We formulate a uni-location problem called UNILOC, uniting these three fractions of a pattern, and propose an algorithmic complex UNICOM for its investigation.     

Co-movement of oil and stock prices in the GCC region: A wavelet analysis

This paper examines the short term and long term dependencies between stock market returns and OPEC basket oil returns for the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) and two non-oil producing countries in the region (Egypt and Jordan), over the period 2002–2011. We utilize the wavelet coherency methodology in our empirical analyses. The empirical evidence indicates lack of market dependencies in the short term in these countries, indicating that oil and stock returns are not strongly linked in this interval. However, we show that oil returns and the stock markets returns co-move over the long term. The results also suggest that the long term dependencies are much stronger for OPEC oil returns and Jordan stock market returns relative to OPEC oil returns and Egypt stock market returns, implying a variation in the dependencies between oil prices and stock markets across countries. We further note an increasing strength in the market dependencies after 2007, signifying enhanced diversification benefit for investors in the short term relative to the long term.     

老凤祥 跨越三个世纪的传奇

中国家喻户晓的上海老凤祥银楼拥有160余年的骄人历史。其历经三个世纪的岁月锤炼,赋予“老凤祥”这个民族品牌以深厚的历史文化内涵。在中国．老凤祥堪称传承至今历史最为悠久的经典世纪品牌