CONVERTIBLE BOND PRICING MODELS

Convertible bonds are an important segment of the corporate bond market, with worldwide outstandings approaching US$235 billion. Simple pricing models value a convertible bond as being equivalent to a straight bond with an embedded option that enables the bond holder to convert to a specific amount of common stock. The straight bond is subject to both interest rate and credit risk, whereas the option to convert is dependent on the underlying stock price, which exposes the convertible bond holder to equity risk. The complexity of these features means that convertible bonds tend to be treated casually in major derivatives and corporate finance textbooks. This paper presents a survey of the theoretical and empirical aspects of convertible bond pricing. The limitations of these studies are highlighted to identify those areas of research that may improve the valuation process and facilitate the application of these securities for corporate financing.     

Two state capital accumulation with heterogenous products: Disruptive vs. non-disruptive goods

The paper considers the problem of a firm that, while producing a standard product, has the option to introduce an innovative product. The innovative product competes with the standard product and will therefore reduce revenues of the standard product. A distinction is made between innovative products that do or do not become even more relatively appealing as their market share grows (e.g., because of network externalities). It is shown that in the former case, which we call a “disruptive” good, history dependent long run equilibria can occur, which are in line with recent real life economic examples.     

Price-raising drug enforcement and property crime: a dynamic model

Price-raising drug enforcement suppresses drug use, but it is expensive and may increase property crime. This has led to contradictory recommendations concerning how drug enforcement should or should not be used. We reconcile these recommendations by incorporating the enforcement's effects on both drug use and on property crime within an optimal-control model that recognizes whether convicted drug-involved property offenders are merely incarcerated or whether they receive some form of drug treatment.     

Government debt and fiscal execution efficiency

Governments have used deficit policies in recent years, yet many still face fiscal debt problems. Thus, this research uses Range Directional Measure Dynamic Directional Distance Function model with negative data to explore the financial efficiency of local governments in Taiwan from 2011 to 2018. This article has three major contributions: (1) The research uses RDM Dynamic DDF model with negative data to solve the problem of negative values on input and output data and uses dynamic models to make up for the deficiencies of past research. (2) Due to the differences in regions, local governments have different fiscal budgets. Therefore, this article uses the Wilcoxon Test to explore the efficiency differences of local governments in different regions. (3) This article analyzes the impact of central subsidies and government deficits (debts) of local governments on fiscal efficiency, and discusses the efficiency of government fiscal execution. The results are as follows. (1) Seven counties and cities with the best efficiency, and seven local governments with poor efficiency. (2) The fiscal performances of outlying islands and eastern local governments are better than those of western local governments. (3) Kaohsiung City has the highest accumulated debt and Tainan City exhibits poor financial performance.     

Beyond survival: the implementation of new forms of work organization in the UK and German steel industries

This paper outlines and analyses the major changes in work-force organization that have been introduced by British and German steel producers in the past decade, against a backcloth of retrenchment in the industry, new product development and technological change. Including multiskilling, a reduction in demarcation and team–working, these changes have had a major effect upon the composition of the work–force and the nature of work undertaken at the shopfloor level.

While these changes have had a common broad trajectory, they have been introduced at a different pace and in different forms. The contrasts are provided not only at the international level, but between plants in the same countries. The paper further outlines the response of trade unions to these changes and the implications for industrial relations at the shopfloor level.     

The linkage between profit sharing and organizational citizenship behaviour

The study investigated the effects of profit sharing (cash-based, stock-based and combined-total profit sharing) on organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). It also examined the mediating role of organizational commitment on the relationship between profit sharing and OCB. Data were collected from 426 employees of 35 information electronics companies in Taiwan. Results showed that whereas cash-based profit sharing had no effect on OCB, both combined-total profit sharing and stock-based profit sharing positively influenced OCB. We also found that organizational commitment mediated the relationship between profit sharing (stock-based and combined-total profit sharing) and OCB.     

REVERSE REGRESSIONS AND LONG‐HORIZON FORECASTING

Long‐horizon predictive regressions in finance pose formidable econometric problems when estimated using available sample sizes. Hodrick in 1992 proposed a remedy that is based on running a reverse regression of short‐horizon returns on the long‐run mean of the predictor. Unfortunately, this only allows the null of no predictability to be tested, and assumes stationary regressors. In this paper, we revisit long‐horizon forecasting from reverse regressions, and argue that reverse regression methods avoid serious size distortions in long‐horizon predictive regressions, even when there is some predictability and/or near unit roots. Meanwhile, the reverse regression methodology has the practical advantage of being easily applicable when there are many predictors. We apply these methods to forecasting excess bond returns using the term structure of forward rates, and find that there is indeed some return forecastability. However, confidence intervals for the coefficients of the predictive regressions are about twice as wide as those obtained with the conventional approach to inference. We also include an application to forecasting excess stock returns. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.