Overnight borrowing, interest rates and extreme value theory

We examine the dynamics of extreme values of overnight borrowing rates in an inter-bank money market before a financial crisis during which overnight borrowing rates rocketed up to (simple annual) 4000 percent. It is shown that the generalized Pareto distribution fits well to the extreme values of the interest rate distribution. We also provide predictions of extreme overnight borrowing rates using pre-crisis data. The examination of tails (extreme values) provides answers to such issues as to what are the extreme movements to be expected in financial markets; is there a possibility for even larger movements and, are there theoretical processes that can model the type of fat-tails in the observed data? The answers to such questions are essential for proper management of financial exposures and laying ground for regulations.     

Realized volatility transmission: The role of jumps and leverage effects

This paper is the first to employ a multivariate extension of the LHAR–CJ model for realized volatility of Corsi and Renó (2012) considering continuous and jump volatility components and leverage effects. The model is applied to financial (S&P 500), commodity (WTI crude oil) and forex (US$/EUR) intraday futures data and allows new insights in the transmission mechanisms among these markets. Besides significant leverage effects, we find that the jump components of all considered assets do not contain incremental information for the one-step ahead realized volatility. The volatility of S&P 500 and US$/EUR exchange rate futures exhibits significant spillovers to the realized volatility of WTI. Moreover, decreasing equity prices appear to increase volatility in other markets, while strengthening of the US$ seems to calm down the crude oil market.     

Health expenditure models: A comparison using panel data

In this article, we focus on the estimation of outpatient expenditures with panel data. We model the logarithm of expenditures and consider five different models. The first two are two-part and sample selection cross-section models. Two-part panel data models turn out to be inappropriate for dealing with expenditures. We thus estimate sample selection models with panel data: one without a lagged dependent variable and two with a lagged dependent variable. These two latter models differ in their assumptions on the variance of the residuals. Modelling heteroscedasticity may indeed be important to avoid the bias due to the retransformation problem. We show that lagged dependent variables are important factors for heteroscedasticity. For the models with state dependence, we provide a new solution to the initial conditions problem by controlling for generalised residuals. We establish that panel data models highly improve the correlation explained by the model in the time-series dimension without damaging the fit in the cross-section dimension. For all indicators of fit, the model with state dependence and heteroscedasticity seems to dominate the others.     

Information aggregation in financial markets with career concerns

What are the equilibrium features of a dynamic financial market in which traders care about their reputation for ability? We modify a standard sequential trading model to include traders with career concerns. We show that this market cannot be informationally efficient: there is no equilibrium in which prices converge to the true value, even after an infinite sequence of trades. We characterize the most revealing equilibrium of this game and show that an increase in the strength of the traders' reputational concerns has a negative effect on the extent of information that can be revealed in equilibrium but a positive effect on market liquidity.     

Gauging potential sovereign risk contagion in Europe

This study adopts the CoVaR methodology to analyse the tail risk relationships among European sovereigns, which provide arguably important information for policymakers to identify countries that should come under close scrutiny during the current debt crisis.     

Efficient allocations under ambiguity

Important implications of the expected utility hypothesis and risk aversion are that if agents have the same probability belief, then consumption plans in every efficient allocation of resources under uncertainty are comonotone with the aggregate endowment, and if their beliefs are concordant, then the consumption plans are measurable with respect to the aggregate endowment. We study these two properties of efficient allocations for models of preferences that exhibit ambiguity aversion using the concept of conditional beliefs, which we introduce in this paper. We provide characterizations of such conditional beliefs for the standard models of preferences used in applications.     

Regime-shifts and post-float inflation dynamics of Australia

Australia's inflation rate and inflation uncertainty during the post-float era 1983Q3-2006Q4 have acted as important barometers of Australia's macroeconomic performance. The conceptualization and measurement of the nexus between inflation and inflation uncertainty is subject to complex dynamics. We use the Markov regime switching heteroscedasticity (MRSH) model to capture long-run stochastic trend and short-run noisy components. This allows us to conclude that in post-float Australia the results deviate significantly from the mainstream Friedman paradigm on inflation and its uncertainty. We also critically review the plausibility of rival paradigms e.g. Keynesian-Mundell-Fleming, Friedman-Ball, Cukierman-Meltzer and Holland, explaining this paradoxical behavior. The analyses presented here provide valuable insights to policymakers grappling with the challenge of designing monetary policy to combat the adverse effects of inflation and inflation uncertainty for Australia emerging out of the global financial crisis.     

Liquidity-adjusted conditional capital asset pricing model

This paper derives a liquidity-adjusted conditional two-moment capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and a liquidity-adjusted conditional three-moment CAPM respectively based on theory of stochastic discount factor. The liquidity-adjusted conditional two-moment CAPM shows that a security's conditional expected excess return consists of three parts: its conditional expected liquidity cost, the systemic risk premium and the liquidity risk premium. The liquidity-adjusted conditional three-moment CAPM shows that a security's conditional expected excess return depends on its conditional expected liquidity cost, the conditional covariance between its return and the market return, the conditional covariance between its liquidity cost and the market liquidity cost, and the conditional coskewness of its return and the market return.     

Frequency domain analysis of foreign exchange order flows

Using a unique data set from the Bank of Canada, this paper presents the frequency domain analysis of a causal relationship between the Canada/US dollar exchange rate movements and currency order flows. The evidence shows that the existence as well as the direction of causality depends on the customer type, frequency, and time period.     

The treatment effect, the cross difference, and the interaction term in nonlinear “difference-in-differences” models

In any nonlinear “difference-in-differences” model with strictly monotonic transformation function, the treatment effect is the cross difference of the observed outcome minus the cross difference of the potential non-treatment outcome, which equals the incremental effect of the interaction term coefficient.     

虚拟研发中的知识产权管理策略——基于案例的分析

科学的知识产权管理是虚拟研发成功的关键。波音7E7飞机的研发实践表明:依据虚拟研发组织的周期性、发挥核心企业主导作用、认真选择合作伙伴并恰当分解任务、完善信息系统是知识产权管理的最主要因素。我国的C3G联盟研发实践,也对虚拟研发及其知识产权管理模式进行了初步的探索。我国虚拟研发应当在发挥企业主体地位、合理选择合作伙伴和合作模式、注意运行安全的基础上,全过程完善知识产权管理。     

South African stock return predictability in the context data mining: The role of financial variables and international stock returns

In this paper, we examine the predictive ability, both in-sample and the out-of-sample, for South African stock returns using a number of financial variables, based on monthly data with an in-sample period covering 1990:01 to 1996:12 and the out-of-sample period of 1997:01 to 2010:04. We use the t-statistic corresponding to the slope coefficient in a predictive regression model for in-sample predictions, while for the out-of-sample, the MSE-F and the ENC-NEW tests statistics with good power properties were utilised. To guard against data mining, a bootstrap procedure was employed for calculating the critical values of both the in-sample and out-of-sample test statistics. Furthermore, we use a procedure that combines in-sample general-to-specific model selection with out-of-sample tests of predictive ability to further analyse the predictive power of each financial variable. Our results show that, for the in-sample test statistic, only the stock returns for our major trading partners have predictive power at certain short and long run horizons. For the out-of-sample tests, the Treasury bill rate and the term spread together with the stock returns for our major trading partners show predictive power both at short and long run horizons. When accounting for data mining, the maximal out-of-sample test statistics become insignificant from 6-months onward suggesting that the evidence of the out-of-sample predictability at longer horizons is due to data mining. The general-to-specific model shows that valuation ratios contain very useful information that explains the behaviour of stock returns, despite their inability to predict stock return at any horizon. The model also highlights the role of multiple variables in predicting stock returns at medium- to long run horizons.     

Stock exchange mergers and weak form of market efficiency: The case of Euronext Lisbon

This exploratory paper is among the first to examine the impact of stock exchange mergers on informational market efficiency. We focus on the merger of Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto (Portuguese Stock Exchange) with Euronext in 2002 (that created Euronext Lisbon). To investigate this question we perform numerous statistical tests: serial correlation test (ACF test), runs test, unit root test (Kwiatkowski, Philips, Schmidt, & Shin, 1992), multiple variance ratio test (Chow & Denning, 1993) and ranks and signs test (Wright, 2000).The results indicate that the Portuguese Equity Market is inefficient in weak form during pre-merger period implying that investors possessed an opportunity to earn abnormal returns though small in magnitude. The results, sensitive to the methodology used, indicate a mixed evidence of improvement in market efficiency during the post-merger period. Although the findings are mixed, yet most tests show a tendency of improved efficiency.     

Default and liquidity regimes in the bond market during the 2002–2012 period

Using a real‐time random regime shift technique, we identify and discuss two different regimes in the dynamics of credit spreads during 2002–2012: a liquidity regime and a default regime. Both regimes contribute to the patterns observed in credit spreads. The liquidity regime seems to explain the predictive power of credit risk on the 2007–2009 NBER recession, whereas the default regime drives the persistence of credit spreads over the same recession. Our results complement the recent dynamic structural models as well as monetary and credit supply effects models by empirically supporting two important patterns in credit spreads: the persistence and the predictive ability toward economic downturns.     

Stock exchange mergers and return co-movement: A flexible dynamic component correlations model

The creation of a common cross-border stock trading platform is found, by use of a Flexible Dynamic Component Correlations (FDCC) model, to have increased long-run trends in conditional correlations between foreign and domestic stock market returns.     

Unilateral CVA for CDS in a contagion model with stochastic pre-intensity and interest

Price of a financial derivative with unilateral counterparty credit risk equals to the price of an otherwise risk-free derivative minus a credit value adjustment (CVA) component, which can be seen as a call option on investor's NPV with strike 0. Thus modeling volatility of NPV is the foundation for CVA valuation. This paper assumes that default times of counterparty and reference firm follow a special contagion model with stochastic pre-intensities that allows for explicit formulas for default probabilities. Stochastic interest rate is also incorporated to account for positive correlation between pre-intensity and interest. Survival measure approach is employed to calculate NPV of a risk-free CDS, and semi-analytical solution for CVA is obtained through affine specifications. Numerical analysis shows that contagion has more significant impact on CVA than diffusion of pre-intensities, and the positive correlation between interest and reference firm's pre-intensity has monotonic decreasing impact on CVA.     

Price manipulation in an experimental asset market

We analyze in the laboratory whether an uninformed trader is able to manipulate the price of a financial asset by comparing the results of two experimental treatments. In the benchmark treatment, 12 subjects trade a common value asset that takes either a high or a low value. Only three subjects know the actual value of the asset while the market is open for trading. The manipulation treatment is identical to the benchmark treatment apart from the fact that we introduce a computer program as an additional uninformed trader. This robot buys a fixed number of shares in the beginning of a trading period and sells them again afterwards. Our main result shows that the last contract price is significantly higher in the manipulation treatment if the asset takes a low value and that private information is very well disseminated by both markets if the value of the asset is high. Finally, even though this simple manipulation program loses money on average, it is profitable in some instances.