Production and hedging under correlated price and background risks

Decisions in Economics and Finance - This paper examines the competitive firm that has to make its production and hedging decisions under correlated price and background risks. The background risk...     

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.     

Duality,income and substitution effects for the competitive firm under price uncertainty

This paper uses duality theory to decompose the total effect on the competitive firm's output of an increase in the riskiness of output price into income and substitution effects. Properties of preferences that control the sign of each effect are identified. The analysis extends to the general class of quasi‐linear decision models in which the payoff is linear in the random variable. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk aversion,forward markets and the competitive labor-managed firm under price uncertainty

This paper examines the behavior of a labor-managed co-operative firm which can sell its output in both spot and forward markets, where the random spot price varies between a price floor and a price ceiling but the forward price is a known parameter. We demonstrate that a risk-averse labor-managed firm will base its production decision on the forward market price, and that risk aversion is sufficient to give the direct relationship between a change in uncertainty and the amount hedged in the forward market.     

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.     

Financial risk taking in the presence of correlated non-financial background risk

This paper characterizes the stochastic deterioration resulting from taking a zero-mean financial risk in the presence of correlated non-financial background risk. We show in particular that it has an equivalent stochastic order as well as a necessary and sufficient “integral condition” that implies and is implied by a particular sense in which the stochastic deterioration can be decomposed into a “correlation increase” and a “marginal risk increase”. We further characterize a measure of aversion to the stochastic deterioration. These characterizations provide for a more general framework for formulating concepts of increases in risk and correlation and for better understanding risk management decisions governed by individuals’ attitudes to them.     

Hedging to market-wide shocks and competitive selection

This paper examines hedging against a large market-wide shock in a model with heterogeneous firms and sunk costs of entry. If hedging is voluntary only the most efficient firms hedge against this shock, a finding in line with empirical evidence but at odds with standard motivations for risk management. Hedging affects the critical level of the marginal cost needed to operate in the market. A setting with mandatory hedging is associated with stronger competition than when hedging is voluntary which, in turn, is associated with stronger competition than when hedging is unavailable.     

Quantity and price controls by the firm under demand uncertainty and welfare implications

A monopoly facing an uncertain demand can affect its profit distribution through the choice of ex ante controls. This paper compares two modes of behavior - price-setting and quantity-setting - in the context of a mean-variance model. The main results are: (a) With nonlinear cost, the monopoly will not be indifferent between the two modes. In the particular case of quadratic cost, conditions for the dominance of price-setting over quantity-setting behavior are derived. (b) Whereas it is well-known that the risk averse, quantity-setting monopoly will produce less under uncertainty than under certainty (or risk neutrality), the price-setting monopoly increases its expected output when faced by uncertain demand, possibly exceeding even the competitive output under uncertainty. (c) Using expected social surplus as a welfare criterion, price-setting emerges as the welfare-dominant behavior when there is a conflict between the privately and the socially preferred modes. (d) Finally, there exist conditions where price-setting monopolies welfare-dominate a competitive industry facing the same random demand.     

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.     

Duality and consumption decisions under income and price risk

This paper uses duality to provide an analysis of compensated and uncompensated decisions under income and/or price risk. We focus on a two-good model, in which the individual maximizes expected utility subject to a stochastic budget constraint. A Slutsky equation is derived that decomposes the derivative of the optimal decision function with respect to any parameter in the model into an income effect and a substitution effect. The total effect of an increase in risk is controlled by the generalized preference intensity, while the compensated effect of an increase in risk is controlled by the generalized risk premium developed in the literature on aversion to one risk in the presence of another.     

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。     

Crude oil price dynamics with crash risk under fundamental shocks

Our paper presents a crude oil price model in which the price is confined in a wide moving band. A price crash occurs when the price breaches the lower boundary where a smooth-pasting condition is imposed. Using an asymmetric mean-reverting fundamental (supply/demand) shock, the solution derived from the oil price equation for the model shows the oil price follows a mean-reverting square-root process, which is quasi-bounded at the boundary. The oil price dynamics generates left-skewed price distributions consistent with empirical observations. A weakened mean-reverting force for the price increases the probability leakage for the price across the boundary and the risk of a price crash. The empirical results show the oil price dynamics can be calibrated according to the model, where the mean reversion of the price dynamics is positively co-integrated with the oil production reaction to negative demand shocks, and with the risk reversals of the commodity currencies, the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar in currency option markets. The results are consistent with an increased price crash risk with negative demand shocks and negative risk reversals. The forecasting performance of the oil price model is better than the futures-spread models and random walk models during the crash periods. While the price of oil was above the lower boundary for most of the time, the conditions for breaching the boundary were met in 2008 and 2014 when the price fell sharply.     

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.     

Decreasing downside risk aversion and background risk

In this paper, we show that risk vulnerability can be associated with the concept of downside risk aversion (DRA) and an assumption about its behavior, namely that it is decreasing in wealth. Specifically, decreasing downside risk aversion in the Arrow–Pratt and Ross senses are respectively necessary and sufficient for a zero-mean background risk to raise the aversion to other independent risks.     

Coupons and price discrimination in vertically‐correlated markets

This research analyzes the non‐cooperative and cooperative strategies with respect to manufacturer and retailer coupons. In a model with one manufacturer selling its product to one retailer, it is found that the retailer can achieve third‐degree price discrimination equilibrium in retail markets by issuing coupons to demanders with higher elasticity. Although facing only one retailer, the manufacturer can also achieve the same third‐degree price discrimination equilibrium by issuing coupons directly to demanders of higher elasticity. However, when only one firm issues the coupon, both manufacturer and retailer coupons can help alleviate the channel profit loss due to double marginalization. If the manufacturer and the retailer non‐cooperatively issue coupons, then the subgame‐perfect Nash equilibrium outcomes are equivalent to those under the successive third‐degree price discrimination. Moreover, cooperative strategies between the manufacturer and the retailer can eliminate double marginalization, achieve the vertical integration effect, and lead to higher profits, consumer surpluses, and social surpluses than non‐cooperative coupon strategies. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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