The competitive firm under price uncertainty: the role of information and hedging

We study the impact of transparency in a commodity market on the decision problem of a competitive firm under price uncertainty and hedging opportunities. Market transparency is modeled by means of the informational content of publicly observable signals which are correlated with the random price. We find that the impact of more transparency on labor employment and production depends on the firm’s technology. In particular, more transparency may result in lower average output even though on average more labor has been used in the production process. We also analyze the link between market transparency and the welfare of the firm. We are grateful to two anonymous referees who made extremely useful comments and suggestions.     

Location theory of the firm under price uncertainty

This paper presents a theory of location under price uncertainty employing a general utility and production function. The analysis is also conducted by incorporating a homogeneous production function. Risk preferences of the firm are treated as an integral part of the model.     

Location theory of the firm under price uncertainty : Some New Conclusions

This paper presents certain general results of my earlier location theory of the firm under price uncertainty. An expected utility maximizing firm excludes all intermediate locations between the market and raw material site.     

会计师事务所核心竞争力培育浅探

本文以战略管理领域的资源基础论为依据,提出会计师事务所品牌是其核心竞争力的源泉.同时借鉴国际四大会计师事务所的发展历程,指出品牌来源于高质量服务、规模化连锁服务网络、合理的组织结构、独一无二的企业文化的力量耦合,并对本土会计师事务所如何做大做强提出了建议.     

北京：人口剧增背景下的房价综合治理

北京市人口呈现爆炸式增长,有观点认为应放任房价上涨以此解决人口问题。本文从分析北京市近年来人口变动情况及北京市房价现状入手,分析“高房价抑制人口增长论”,提出解决人口剧增的根本性办法是加快城乡统筹,从宏观层面予以解决。在北京市人口剧增的背景下,北京房价的调控措施应该包括坚持限购政策、开征房产税、加大保障性住房建设、打击市场上垄断投机、骗购骗租等不良行为。     

钢材市场价格风险及其避险工具开发

文章介绍了近年来钢材价格大幅波动的状况及危害,阐述了钢材远期电子交易、钢材期货及钢材期权与钢材期货期权等价格避险工具的概况,在此基础上探讨了钢材价格风险回避工具的开发。     

Managerial hedging ability and firm risk

Modern portfolio theory suggests that undiversified executives would choose to diversify their significant holdings of their firm??s stock if the opportunity was available. Recent work suggests that managerial hedging is more prevalent than in years past as more innovative hedging instruments have become available to executives. Typically, unrestricted shares are used in these hedging transactions whereas restricted shares are not. In this paper, I examine whether a CEO??s composition of firm stockholdings between restricted and unrestricted shares impacts the level of risk undertaken by the firm. I document a negative and statistically significant relationship between firm risk and the proportion of CEO total shareholdings that are unrestricted and this negative relationship holds for alternative measures of firm risk. This result supports the notion that the composition of a CEO??s portfolio of firm stock between restricted and unrestricted shares is a significant determinant of firm risk.     

Decision-making under risk: Editing procedures based on correlated similarities, and preference overdetermination

This paper studies editing procedures based on similarity relations in an expected utility maximization context. It shows that these procedures are compatible both with a family of difference-correlated similarities on the prize space and with a set of families (one for each probability) of ratio-correlated similarity relations on the probability space. In view of the properties satisfied by these families of correlated similarities, it is suggested that Rubinstein's preference overdetermination problem can be avoided. Received: 17 April 1996 / Accepted: 24 September 1998     

Family background and gender: implications for interest in small firm ownership

This paper directly assesses the impact of family background, sex and work experience on interest in small firm ownership and employment. Additional exploration focuses on differentiating family background (parents-only versus extended-only) to assess the impact on small firm career interest. Results indicate that family background, sex and work experience are significant predictors of these interests. Specifically, males are more interested than females in someday owning their own small business. Small firm work experience enhanced interest in small firm employment. When comparing males and females with an extended-only family background, males are significantly more interested than females in small firm ownership. Implications for future research are discussed.     

The contributions of productivity, price changes and firm size to profitability

Sources of profit change for Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications firm, are examined. A new method allows for changes, in a firm’s profits to be broken down into separate effects due to productivity change, price changes, and growth in the firm’s size. This in turn allows us to calculate the distribution of the benefits of productivity improvements between consumers, labor, and shareholders. The results show that around half the benefits from Telstra’s productivity improvements from 1984 to 1994 were passed on to consumers in the form of real price reductions.

Ross risk vulnerability for introductions and changes in background risk

We present two theorems that provide necessary and sufficient conditions for an expected utility maximizer to become more risk averse in the sense of Ross with respect to bearing a foreground risk after the introduction of any independent fair or unfair additive background risk. We call these decision makers Ross risk vulnerable, and show that Ross decreasing absolute risk aversion and Ross decreasing absolute prudence are jointly sufficient for Ross risk vulnerability. Restrictions on utility necessary and sufficient for Ross risk vulnerability with respect to stochastic dominance deteriorations of an existing background risk are also presented. Our analysis concludes with applications of Ross risk vulnerability.     

The discussion on audit risk and prevention of accounting firm

This paper analyses audit quality control, brain gain, time pressure of CPA, follow-up education of auditors by firms. The reasons of audit risk rising of CPA are discussed. Based on the foregoing analysis, the author puts forward some measures about self-construction, processes and others of firms and CPA to reduce audit risk of CPA.     

经济全球化背景下的城市化

本文论述了城市从工业时代过渡到信息时代后 ,正在形成的新的城市网络体系的特点 ,分析了中国的城市化的后发优势     

招拍挂制度下的土地估价

我国的国有建设用地使用权招标、拍卖和挂牌公开出让(以下简称招拍挂)制度正式实行并发展至今,已有六年多的时间。该项制度通过土地市场化配置的历程,揭示出土地和房地产市场运行的内在规律。自2002年5月国土资源部《招标拍卖挂牌出让国有土地使用权规定》发布实施以来,各地土地交易有形市场相继建立,招拍挂也逐渐替代协议成为主流的土地供应方式。今年1月,国务     

The firm under uncertainty: real and financial decisions

This paper examines the interplay between the real and financial decisions of the competitive firm under output price uncertainty. The firm faces additional sources of uncertainty that are aggregated into a background risk. We show that the firm always chooses its optimal debt–equity ratio to minimize the weighted average cost of capital, irrespective of the risk attitude of the firm and the incidence of the underlying uncertainty. We further show that the firm’s optimal input mix depends on its optimal debt–equity ratio, thereby rendering the interdependence of the real and financial decisions of the firm. When the background risk is either additive or multiplicative, we provide reasonable restrictions on the firm’s preferences so as to ensure that the firm’s optimal output is adversely affected upon the introduction of the background risk.     

House price risk and the hedging benefits of home ownership

Using a repeat-sales methodology, this paper finds that estimates of house price risk based on aggregate house price indices substantially underestimate the true size of house price risk. This is the result of the fact that aggregate house price indices average away the idiosyncratic volatility in house prices. Additional results show that the idiosyncratic risk exceeds the hedging benefits of home ownership. These results imply that for many home owners, owning a house may well add more price risk than it hedges away. These findings are based on a detailed dataset of individual housing transactions in the Netherlands.     

Variance trading and market price of variance risk

This paper develops a new approach for variance trading. We show that the discretely-sampled realized variance can be robustly replicated under very general conditions, including when the price can jump. The replication strategy specifies the exact timing for rebalancing in the underlying. The deviations from the optimal schedule can lead to surprisingly large hedging errors. In the empirical application, we synthesize the prices of the variance contract on S&P 500 index over the period from 01/1990 to 12/2009. We find that the market variance risk is priced, its risk premium is negative and economically very large. The variance risk premium cannot be explained by the known risk factors and option returns.     

Unemployment risk, house price risk and the transition into home ownership in the United Kingdom

Using household panel data, this paper examines the impact of income uncertainty, in the form of unemployment risk, on home ownership in the United Kingdom. The existing literature based on cross-sectional studies finds a negative relationship between income uncertainty and home ownership. This paper utilises data on transitions into home ownership and exogenous variation in unemployment risk, avoiding the endogeneity of employment to home ownership status. It also conditions the empirical estimates on a measure of house price volatility utilising a local-level house price index to control house price risk, which might also discourage home ownership. Results show a strong role for unemployment risk in lowering the likelihood of house purchase, but no statistically significant role for house price risk.     

Behavior of the firm under rate-of-return regulation with two capital inputs

Traditional electric utility companies face a trade-off between building generation facilities that utilize renewable energy (RE) and non-renewable energy (non-RE). The firm's input decision to build capacity for either source depends on several constraining factors, including input prices, policies that promote or discourage RE use, and the type of regulation faced by the firm. This paper models the utility company's decision between RE and non-RE capital inputs. From the model, we derive the result that rate-of-return (ROR) regulation decreases the investment in RE capital relative to the unregulated firm. These findings suggest restructuring electricity generation markets, which removes the ROR on generating assets, can increase the relative use of RE. A second result of the model shows that the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) increases the investment in capital that requires RE as a source of electricity, as expected. This paper contributes to the literature on the substitution between renewable and non-renewable resources, by examining the policies that affect the investment in the two types of technologies. The model can also be applied to other regulated utilities, such as water or natural gas companies, with outputs that are produced from different types of capital.     

Optimal harvesting under resource stock and price uncertainty

We analyze partial and complete depletion harvesting policy under resource stock and price uncertainty and risk neutrality. We state a set of weak conditions under which the optimal policy can be characterized by a single threshold and show that the value can be expressed in a separable form where price volatility affects the value through the risk adjusted growth rate. Both higher price and stock volatility decrease the value when the correlation between the driving Brownian motions is negative. With no correlation the optimal policy is independent of price volatility while higher stock volatility increases the harvesting threshold.