Term Premia and Interest Rate Forecasts in Affine Models

The standard class of affine models produces poor forecasts of future Treasury yields. Better forecasts are generated by assuming that yields follow random walks. The failure of these models is driven by one of their key features: Compensation for risk is a multiple of the variance of the risk. Thus risk compensation cannot vary independently of interest rate volatility. I also describe a broader class of models. These "essentially affine" models retain the tractability of standard models, but allow compensation for interest rate risk to vary independently of interest rate volatility. This additional flexibility proves useful in forecasting future yields.     

Approximating unanimity orderings: An application to Lorenz dominance

Stochastic dominance and Lorenz dominance are examples of orderings which require unanimous agreement among an infinite set of indices. This paper considers various subsets of inequality measures that respect Lorenz dominance, and assesses the extent to which a small number of indices can reproduce the Lorenz ordering. Using income data for 80 countries, our results suggest that Lorenz dominance can be predicted with 99% accuracy using just 3 or 4 inequality measures, as long as two of them focus on the extreme upper and lower tails of the distribution. In contrast, confining attention to the index families and parameter ranges normally considered may fail to detect the majority of occasions when Lorenz curves intersect. These results lead us to question the faith placed in procedures based on a finite set of inequality indices, and to suggest that similar lessons will apply to other types of unanimity orderings.     

Schools of thought in organizational learning

This article attempts to bring coherence to the diversity that characterizes organizational learning research. It argues that organizational learning is embedded in four schools of thought: an economic school, a managerial school, a developmental school, and a process school. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the schools, describes how they differ from each other, and outlines how each of them can be employed effectively. To demonstrate the benefits of theoretical plurality, the four schools are applied to the key marketing topics of market orientation and new product development. Implications for future research in marketing are provided. Simon J. Bell is a lecturer in marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Gregory J. Whitwell is an associate professor of marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Bryan A. Lukas is an associate professor of marketing and director of the Master of Applied Commerce Program in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne.     

Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results*

We use a vertical product differentiation model under partial market coverage to study the social welfare optimum and duopoly equilibrium when convex costs of quality provision are either fixed or variable in terms of production. We show the following new results. First, under fixed costs, the social planner charges a uniform price for the single variant that just covers costs of quality provision. Like the duopoly equilibrium, this socially optimal pricing entails a partially uncovered market, but a smaller share of the market is served compared with the duopoly equilibrium. Second, for the variable cost case, it is socially optimal to provide both high‐ and low‐quality variants, but market shares need not be equal. This differs from the result in fully covered markets. Third, in the duopoly equilibrium, the quality spread is too wide under variable costs relative to the social optimum. Under fixed costs, the duopoly produces two variants, but quality is too low relative to the social optimum, which has only one variant.     

Produktgarantien und Aktienkrise — Implikationen für die Kapitalanlagepolitik von Lebensversicherungsunternehmen

The present contribution analyzes the implications of two central factors influencing the asset allocation decision of (German) life insurance companies, the development of the equity market on one hand and the interest rate guarantees included in traditional life insurance products on the other. The adverse development of share prices in 2000–2002 implies the necessity to consider not only ?normal“ volatility but also worst case-developments for the purpose of risk control. Formally this is done by using the risk measures value-at-risk and conditional value-at-risk. The specific ?myopic“ nature of interest rate guarantees in German life insurance products, which are granted on a yearly basis implies — beyond the general control of the shortfall risk with respect to the guaranteed interest rates — the necessity to per-form the asset allocation on a yearly basis to be in conformity with the time horizon of the liabilities.On the basis of a quantitative approach corresponding model calculations are performed. Thereby not only a pure market valuation is considered but also institutional peculiarities (hidden reserves, accounting norms) of German life insurance companies. The possibility of a riskless one-year investment, either based on market values or on balance sheet values, is revealed to be crucial for giving interest rate guarantees on a yearly basis.     

Branding and relationships: Customer and supplier perspectives

This paper explores and investigates the role of branding within financial services. Specifically, the study aims to assess the importance of branding and its associated elements including brand image and brand experience in the relationships that exist between consumers and their financial brands. It aims to achieve this through research, which identifies gaps between the managerial and consumer perspectives on branding in relationships in retail financial services. It is well established that the characteristics of services are different from those of manufactured goods and that service personnel play a central role in the services experience. Moreover, the concept of relationship marketing within services proclaims the importance of one-to-one relationships between businesses and customers as well as relationships between consumers and their brands. Drawing from the fields of brand management, relationship marketing and services marketing, this research aims to investigate the perceptional differences between consumers and suppliers in relation to the importance of branding in financial service relationships. The research findings indicate that brand experience appears to be far more salient than brand image in shaping and building meaningful and lasting brand perceptions and promoting customer retention.