Computing equilibria of GEI by relocalization on a Grassmann manifold

An algorithm is described to compute equilibria of the general economic model with incomplete asset markets, that is, of GEI. The algorithm is based on the existence of a route of zeros of a homotopy whose domain includes the price simplex and a Grassmann Manifold. This route is followed, in effect, by localizing and following diffeomorphic pieces in Euclidean space, and by relocalizing as is necessary.     

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese guidebooks

This study investigates the presentations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as postwar tourism destinations in a selection of Japanese-language guidebooks. Comparison is made between commonly voiced criticisms of Japanese attitudes toward the two atom-bombed sites and the tourism activities suggested by the publications themselves. An expected presentation emphasizing Japanese suffering as a result of the atom bombs is not found in the guides, but neither is an openness to discussion of the war. The conclusions reached find Hiroshima standing as emblematic of the rebuilding nation as a whole, while Nagasaki remains largely outside of the social and cultural dynamics of postwar Japan.     

Infrastructures and Societal Change. A View from the Large Technical Systems Field

Infrastructural and societal changes intertwine in multiple ways. This makes the societal implications of infrastructural projects difficult to assess and anticipate. Yet in present day network societies this task is particularly urgent. This paper first identifies two positions that tend to monopolize and deadlock debates. Next it examines two decades of research in the Large Technical System (LTS) research field for alternative approaches to this issue, before finally suggesting distinguishing between the four increasingly indirect moments of (co-) construction of infrastructures and societies. These may be related causally, but also add their own moments of contingency, agency, and choice.     

Standardization Process of Systems Technologies: Creating a Balance between Competition and Cooperation

Many firms are experimenting with how to standardize new technologies. They may use proprietary technologies for their products and services, and let them compete in the market selection. Alternatively, they can cooperate to jointly set a standard and experiment with combinations of market process and cooperation. If firms let the market decide, they can compete with technologies and need not invest time and effort in hammering out a standard. If they do incur the costs of negotiated standardization, they may enable end users to realize the benefits of standards. A hybrid standardization process combines the advantages of both market selection and negotiated decision making. This paper presents a contingency framework to identify conditions that will affect the preferred standardization process for vendors who introduce new technologies. A major contingency that this paper points to is the systemic nature of technologies in information and communication technology industries. The more systemic the technology is (in a way to be clarified), the less likely that firms will establish a hybrid standardization process. One advantage of decomposing technology systems in smaller components (modules) is that this approach enables firms to combine market selection with negotiated selection of standards.     

Europäische Richtlinie über Versicherungsvermittlung und VVG-Reform

The directive on insurance mediation, proposed by the European Commission, is supposed to secure a minimum standard of professional competence for intermediaries to protect customers as well as to ascertain the intermediaries’ freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services in the internal market. Pursuant to the directive, only an intermediary who is registered in his / her home country’s intermediary register will be allowed to mediate insurances. The intermediary has to comply with professional requirements set by the directive in order to be registered. Yet, part-time intermediaries can be exempted from those requirements by the member states. Additionally, the intermediaries are burdened with certain information and documentation duties towards their customers, a breach of which will cause personal liability. Only these contractual duties are to be implemented in the WG (German Insurance Act), which is soon to be basically reformed.     

The Cost of Capital of Cross‐listed Firms

This paper analyses the cost of capital of firms with foreign equity listings. Our purpose is to shed light on the question whether international and domestic asset pricing models yield a different estimate of the cost of capital for cross‐listed stocks. We distinguish between (i) the multifactor ICAPM of Solnik (1979) and Sercu (1980) including both the global market portfolio and exchange rate risk premia and (ii) the single factor domestic CAPM. We test for the significance of the cost of capital differential in a sample of 336 cross‐listed stocks from nine countries in the period 1980–99. Our hypothesis is that the cost of capital differential is substantial for firms with international listings, as these are often large multinationals with a strong international orientation. We find that the asset pricing models yield a significantly different estimate of the cost of capital for only 12% of the cross‐listed companies. The size of the cost of capital differential is around 50 basis points for the US, 80 basis points for the UK and 100 basis points for France.     

iTV: A major opportunity for financial services,or not?

Interactive television has arrived, thanks to substantial technology investments that have been made by Sky and others. It is growing in importance as innovative interactive applications are developed for broadcast programmes (eg the BBCi service and Big Brother), and for advertising — and will develop further when broadband deployment gets to critical mass. Readers should not expect a television-variant of the world wide web, however. This was tried during 2000–2002 in the form of web look-alike, interactive ‘walled garden’ sites, and failed to attract critical mass footfall. The model has evolved and now revolves around interactive content synchronised with broadcast, which offers financial services companies an interesting new way to increase awareness and to differentiate the service presentation. Furthermore, over the next ten years, broadband is expected to usher in a new era of personalised television — in which specialised broadcasts (such as personal pensions advice programmes) can be made available on demand. The observations in this paper are mainly drawn from the UK, where digital television penetration is high; the lessons can be applied more broadly, however, and are relevant to any organisation thinking of promoting its service through entertainment channels.     

Backtesting Value-at-Risk: A Duration-Based Approach

Financial risk model evaluation or backtesting is a key partof the internal model's approach to market risk management aslaid out by the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision. However,existing backtesting methods have relatively low power in realisticsmall sample settings. Our contribution is the exploration ofnew tools for backtesting based on the duration of days betweenthe violations of the Value-at-Risk. Our Monte Carlo resultsshow that in realistic situations, the new duration-based testshave considerably better power properties than the previouslysuggested tests.