Efficient Funds in a Financial Market with Options: a New Irrelevance Proposition

Under the same assumptions that Ross used to assert the existence of an efficient fund (on which a spanning set of options can be written) we prove that almost any portfolio is an efficient fund. From a constructive point of view, a randomly chosen vector of portfolio weights yields an efficient fund. When the Ross assumptions are relaxed, a limited notion of efficiency-maximal efficiency-is the best attainable. The maximally efficient funds are also everywhere dense in the portfolio space. Some implications are discussed and illustrative examples given.     

Programming Solutions to Capital Rationing Problems

Mathematical programming approaches to the choice of capital expenditure projects under conditions of funds constraint have been widely advocated in the literature of finance. The present paper takes exception to such suggestions, and concludes that programming is not only excessively costly and complex for most practical applications, but is frequently incorrect in the decisions it implies. A technique for allocating funds via an adjusted Excess Present Value Index is developed and proposed as a superior analytical framework.     

ACCOUNTING FOR POPULATION AGEING IN TAX MICROSIMULATION MODELLING BY SURVEY REWEIGHTING*

This paper investigates the use of sample reweighting, in a behavioural tax microsimulation model, to examine the implications for government taxes and expenditure of population ageing in Australia. First, a calibration approach to sample reweighting is described, producing new weights that achieve specified population totals for selected variables. Second, the performance of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) weights provided with the 2000–2001 Survey of Income and Housing Cost (SIHC) was examined and it was found that reweighting does not improve the simulation outcomes for the 2001 situation, so the original ABS weights were retained for 2001. Third, the implications of changes in the age distribution of the population were examined, based on population projections to 2050. A ‘pure’ change in the age distribution was examined by keeping the aggregate population size fixed and changing only the relative frequencies in different age‐gender groups. Finally, the effects of a policy change to benefit taper rates in Australia were compared for 2001 and 2050 population weights. It is suggested that this type of exercise provides an insight into the implications for government income tax revenue and social security expenditure of changes in the population, indicating likely pressures for policy changes.     

Housing Interest Rate Deregulation and the Campbell Report*

It is argued that deregulation of housing interest rates would, under plausible assumptions, substantially increase the cost of housing finance in Australia, contrary to the impression created by the Final Report of the Australian Financial System Inquiry (the Campbell Report). Characteristics of the market for owner-occupier housing finance, on both the demand and supply sides, suggest that the deregulated market rate will be approximately equal to the uncontrolled rate under regulation. The weighted average interest rate for owner-occupier housing finance at December 1981 is more than three percentage points below the uncontrolled rate. The authors conclude that while this result does not of itself constitute an argument against deregulation, it does imply that deregulation would have a substantial distributional impact .     

The Challenge of Human Resources Development

A productive workforce depends on a country's educational system, the quality of its health care, training and retraining opportunities, its family policy, its labor policies with or without unions, and the quality of public services. On all counts, a significant portion of the U.S. workforce is in serious trouble. Numerous community cases and experience abroad teach that ideological boundaries in the United States inhibit the formation of new partnerships, coalitions, and forums essential to the development of more productive human resources     

Testing Rationality in the Point Spread Betting Market

This paper presents empirical tests of market rationality using data from the point spread betting market on National Football League games. Data from this market avoid many common pitfalls of tests of rationality in conventional financial markets. The authors test for rationality with two types of tests, statistical and economic. Results of the tests reveal that the statistical tests cannot reject market rationality while the economic tests do reject market rationality.