Financial determinants of systematic risk in real estate investment trusts

Financial theory and empirical evidence suggest that a firm's systematic, or market related, risk is related to its financial conditions. This study empirically investigates the financial determinants of systematic risk for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). The study is an examination of sample of 32 REITs for the period 1976–1978. The results indicate that systematic risk varies directly with financial leverage, business risk, and advisor fee. The explanatory power of the relationship between systematic risk and financial variables exceeds that of previous studies wherein firms were pooled across industry groups. The higher explanatory power observed even with limited data suggests that better estimates of coefficients of financial determinants of systematic risk may be obtained through analysis conducted on an industry by industry basis. Furthermore, such industry-specific analysis provides useful results to practicing financial managers in their financial policy considerations. With the knowledge of how the financial decisions affect the firm's systematic risk, a manager may be able to manipulate those variables so as to reduce the systematic risk for his or her firm and thus increase the market value of the firm's securities.     

Bubbles and capital flow volatility: Causes and risk management

Emerging market economies are fertile ground for the development of real estate and other financial bubbles. Despite these economies’ significant growth potential, their corporate and government sectors do not generate the financial instruments to provide residents with adequate stores of value. Capital often flows out of these economies seeking these stores of value in the developed world. Bubbles are beneficial because they provide domestic stores of value and thereby reduce capital outflows while increasing investment. But they come at a cost, as they expose the country to bubble-crashes and capital flow reversals. We show that domestic financial underdevelopment not only facilitates the emergence of bubbles, but also leads agents to undervalue the aggregate risk embodied in financial bubbles. In this context, even rational bubbles can be welfare reducing. We study a set of aggregate risk management policies to alleviate the bubble-risk. We show that liquidity requirements, sterilization of capital inflows and structural policies aimed at developing public debt markets ‘collateralized’ by future revenues, all have a high payoff in this environment.     

Expected Default Probabilities in Structural Models: Empirical Evidence

We apply a set of structural models (Black and Cox 1976; Collin-Dufresne and Goldstein 2001; Ericsson and Reneby 1998; Leland and Toft 1996; Longstaff and Schwartz 1995; Merton 1974) to estimate expected default probabilities (EDPs) for a sample of failed and non-failed UK real estate companies. Results are generally consistent with models’ predictions and estimates of EDPs for different models are closely clustered. The results of z-scores and synthetic ratings misclassify 33% of the total sample in contrast to 8% misclassification by structural models. Further analysis of EDPs based on logistic regressions suggests the observed misclassification of the companies by structural models is due to special company management and/or regulatory circumstances rather than limitations of these models.      

On necessarily welfare-enhancing free trade areas

The well-known Kemp-Vanek-Ohyama-Wan proposition establishes that if two or more countries form a customs union (CU) by freezing their net external trade vector through a common external tariff and eliminating internal trade barriers, the union as a whole and the rest of the world cannot be worse off than before. Owing to the fact that a Free Trade Area (whose member countries impose country specific external tariff vectors) does not equalize marginal rates of substitution across its member countries (in contrast to a CU), the literature has been unable to provide a parallel demonstration regarding welfare improving Free Trade Areas (FTAs). The present paper eliminates this gap. In extending the result to the case with intermediate inputs, the paper also sheds new light on the rules of origin required to support such necessarily welfare enhancing FTAs. We show here that provided no trade deflection is permitted, all that is required by way of rules of origin is that the goods produced within the union - whether final or intermediate - be allowed to be traded freely. The proportion of domestic value added in final goods does not enter as a criterion in the rules of origin.     

The WTO promotes trade, strongly but unevenly

This paper furnishes robust evidence that the WTO has had a strong positive impact on trade, amounting to about 120% of additional world trade (or US$ 8 trillion in 2000 alone). The impact has, however, been uneven. This, in many ways, is consistent with theoretical models of the GATT/WTO. The theory suggests that the impact of a country's membership in the GATT/WTO depends on what the country does with its membership, with whom it negotiates, and which products the negotiation covers. Using a properly specified gravity model, we find evidence broadly consistent with these predictions. First, industrial countries that participated more actively than developing countries in reciprocal trade negotiations witnessed a large increase in trade. Second, bilateral trade was greater when both partners undertook liberalization than when only one partner did. Third, sectors that did not witness liberalization did not see an increase in trade.     

Adopting International Financial Reporting Standards for Small and Medium‐sized Enterprises

Diverse complications and controversial issues in the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for Small and Medium‐sized Enterprises (SMEs) have been reported by many jurisdictions, prompting them not to adopt this set of standards. Conversely many jurisdictions have adopted or are in the process of adopting IFRS for SMEs. This study considers the impetus for successfully achieving accounting convergence with IFRS for SMEs in those jurisdictions. The possible transition issues that may arise when countries adopt IFRS for SMEs are also highlighted. Furthermore, to provide pioneering evidence on the problems accountants encounter when applying IFRS for SMEs, we conduct a survey on accounting practitioners in Fiji – an early adopter of this set of standards. Both the insights provided on the process of embracing IFRS for SMEs in Fiji and the opinions elicited from accountants highlight new dimensions to the inherent problems in IFRS for SMEs. Scant attention has been given to this issue so far; hence the empirical evidence provided by our study informs not only the global convergence of SME accounting but also the quality of the current suite of IFRS for SMEs.     

Cost-effectiveness analysis of standalone trabecular micro-bypass stents in patients with mild-to-moderate open-angle glaucoma in Canada

Objectives: To estimate the cost-utility of two trabecular micro-bypass stents (TBS) implantation vs standard of care (SOC) in patients with mild-to-moderate open-angle glaucoma (OAG) in the Canadian healthcare setting.

Methods: The deterioration in visual field (VF) defect over a 15-year time horizon was tracked using a Markov model with Hodapp-Parrish-Anderson stages of glaucoma (mild, moderate, advanced, severe/blind) and death as health states. Meta-analyses of randomized clinical trials were conducted to estimate the pooled reduction in intraocular pressure (IOP) and medication use due to TBS and SOC. The rate of decline in VF loss was adjusted by the extent of IOP reduction to estimate transition probabilities. Healthcare resource utilization, unit costs (2017 CAD), and progression-related utility scores were obtained by literature review, and medication costs with wastage were obtained from IMS Brogan PharmaStat. The impact of parameter and methodological uncertainty on costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) was examined using probabilistic and 1-way sensitivity analyses.

Results: The meta-analysis showed an additional reduction of 1.13 medications/patient and an additional decrease in IOP of –1.10?mmHg at 36?months favoring TBS. TBS strongly dominated medication alone, due to higher improvement in quality-of-life (0.068 QALYs), fewer blind eyes (–0.0031), and a decrease in total healthcare costs of C$2,908.3 per patient over the time horizon (C$9,394.1 TBS vs C$12,302.4 medication alone). Sensitivity analyses showed that results were robust to the uncertainties in model inputs and assumptions. Time-to-dominance was 44?months (3.7?years).

Conclusions: The TBS procedure was cost-effective over SOC in a 15-year time horizon, with quality-of-life gains.