Price relationships between qualitatively differentiated agricultural products: organic and conventional wheat in Germany

Organic agriculture, which produces commodities that can be qualitatively differentiated from conventional food products, has grown into an important market in many countries. The dynamics of commodity prices in both sectors are partly interdependent, but are also shaped by independent determinants and have rarely been studied. We analyze organic food markets and their interdependencies with conventional markets in the context of wheat markets in Germany, which have been subject to a number of fundamental changes during the last two decades. Based on institutional market characteristics, we suggest a flexible Markov‐switching asymmetric time series model. We find a pronounced temporal sequence of market phases that differ in their asymmetric dynamics and the extent to which the organic price is influenced by the conventional price. Organic wheat prices tend to be increasingly connected to prices of conventional wheat.     

Over‐investment or risk mitigation? Corporate social responsibility in Asia‐Pacific,Europe, Japan,and the United States

We study the relationship of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the distribution of stock returns for an international sample. Firms with a high level of CSR generally exhibit superior stock price synchronicity in the markets of Europe, Japan, and the United States. In particular, we identify optimal levels of CSR to minimize idiosyncratic risk for each region. Moreover, CSR has a mitigating effect on crash risk in Europe and the United States. In contrast, firms from the Asia‐Pacific region display CSR over‐investment followed by a higher crash risk. This appears to be a consequence of globalization, which forces firms from Asia‐Pacific to overinvest in CSR to adapt western standards.     

Musket War and Musket trade: The New South Wales to New Zealand firearms trade, 1829–1840

The intertribal Musket wars that spread throughout Māori society in the 1820s and 1830s have received much attention from historians. This is also true of the history of trade between New South Wales and New Zealand occurring at the same time. However, at present, the link between these two phenomena remains poorly established. This article draws on the primary material available about the trans-Tasman arms trade from a relatively untapped source, Sydney newspapers, revealing the surprising extent of this commerce and the fact that firearms imports peaked in the early 1830s. This information necessarily requires revision of our understanding of the Musket wars themselves.     

The Relationship Between Leaders’ Group-Oriented Values and Follower Identification with and Endorsement of Leaders: The Moderating Role of Leaders’ Group Membership

In this article, we hypothesize that leaders who display group-oriented values (i.e., values that focus on the welfare of the group rather than on the self-interest of the leader) will be evaluated more positively by their followers than leaders who do not display group-oriented values. Importantly, we expected these effects to be more pronounced for leaders who are ingroup members (i.e., stemming from the same social group as their followers) than for leaders who are outgroup members (i.e., leaders stemming from a different social group than their followers). We tested our hypotheses in two studies. Results of a field study (N = 95) showed the expected relationship between leaders’ group-oriented values and followers’ identification with their leaders. A scenario study (N = 137) replicated the results and extended it to followers’ endorsement of their leaders. Overall, these findings suggest that displaying group-oriented values pays off more for ingroup than for outgroup leaders.     

An Option-Pricing Approach to the Costs of Export Credit Insurance

This article investigates the relationship between a debtor country's external financial indicators and the costs associated with the insurance of export credits to that country. For this purpose a stylized model of export credit insurance (ECI) is developed, the central idea being that ECI is similar to a contingent claim such as a European put option. Thus, tools from option pricing theory were used to calculate the price of ECI, implying that not only the current financial position but also the volatility of the changes in that position determine such costs. The empirical results of a statistical analysis of the premium rates for ECI, applied by a private export credit insurer to seventy-seven developing countries during 1993, provide some support for these hypotheses. In particular, the reserves-over-imports ratio of a debtor country and the volatility of the rates of change of this ratio appear to contribute significantly to the premium rates that apply to that country. Thus, the article provides evidence that option pricing parameters do play role in practical insurance pricing, even if this pricing is not explicitly based on these parameters. Premium rates are set as if an underlying option market operated. Thus, the trade of countries with volatile external financial positions is saddled with higher costs than that of countries with more stable positions.     

Exchange rate market efficiency and new information

This paper uses a multi-currency approach to analyze the relationship between forward exchange rates, future spot rates and new information. The empirical results tend to support the hypothesis that the exchange rate can be expressed as a function of factors known in advance and ‘news’.     

Hedge-Fonds als Asset-Klasse: Betrachtungen aus der Perspektive der deutschen Versicherungswirtschaft

The over performance of hedge funds until the current financial market turbulences led to a large number of insurers increasing their hedge funds quota. In the following this asset class is examined and particularly analyzed with respect to its adequacy for an insurance company's asset allocation by focusing on the axiom of safety, as demanded by national law. The problem of survivorship-bias and the Markowitz requirements of normal-distribution and constant correlations among the asset classes and their impact on a strategic asset allocation are studied.