A Duration Model For Defaultable Bonds

I extend recent theoretical work on duration and derive an improved model for the risk‐adjusted duration of corporate bonds. My ex‐ante risk‐adjusted duration is the sum of the bond's Fisher‐Weil duration and the duration of the potential expected delay in recovery caused by the default option. My main conclusion is that failing to adjust duration for default is costly for high‐yield bonds, especially those with a shorter time to maturity. For investment‐grade bonds, this cost is trivial for all maturities.     

A subjective assessment of approximate probabilities with a portfolio application

This paper extends the assessment of approximate probabilities in two important directions. The first is to investigate some mathematical relations between the probability ranges and derives the most unbiased probability for the case when the limits are subjectively defined. The second is to suggest a simple method to determine the optimal solution which represents the optimal portfolio proportions of securities that possess the minimum risk measured by the maximum entropy measure. The paper considers the derivation of portfolio modeling under a fuzzy situation using probability theory, and provides various other (non-probabilistic) scenarios with their utility in risk modeling. A simple method for identification of mean-entropic frontier is proposed. Then, a comparison of mean-variance procedure with the discrete mean-entropic method is implemented by an example.     

Weathering the Storm: The Impact of the East Asian Crisis on Farm Households in Indonesia and Thailand

This article assesses the impact of the East Asian financialcrisis on farm households in two of the region's most affectedcountries. Indonesia and Thailand, using detailed household-levelsurvey data collected before and after the crisis began. Althoughthe nature of the shocks in the two countries were similar,the impact on farmers' income (particularly on distribution)was quite different. In Thailand, poor farmers bore the bruntof the crisis, in part because of their greater reliance onthe urban economy, than did poor farmers in Indonesia. Urban-rurallinks are much weaker in Indonesia. Farmers in both countries,particularly those specializing in export crops, benefited fromthe currency devaluation. Although there is some evidence thatthe productivity of the smallest landholders declined over theperiod in question, it is difficult to attribute this directlyto the financial crisis. At least in Thailand, a rural creditcrunch does not seem to have materialized.      

Portfolio optimization in the presence of dependent financial returns with long memory: A copula based approach

In this paper, we seek to examine the effect of the presence of long memory on the dependence structure between financial returns and on portfolio optimization. First, we focus on the dependence structure using copulas. To select the best copula, in addition to the goodness of fit tests, we employ a graphical method based on visual comparison of the fitted copula density and the smoothed copula density estimated by wavelets. Moreover, we check the stability of the copula parameter. The empirical results show that the long memory affects the dependence structure. Second, we analyze the impact of this dependence structure on the optimal portfolio. We propose a new approach based on minimizing the Conditional Value at Risk and assuming that the dependence structure is modeled by the copula parameter. The empirical results show that our approach outperforms the traditional minimizing variance approach, where the dependence structure is represented by the linear correlation coefficient.     

Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective? Evidence from Madagascar

Formalizing land rights has been promoted as a way to encourageagricultural investment and stimulate land markets, yet littleis known about the benefits of such policies in Sub-SaharanAfrica, where the preconditions for success are less favorable.The analysis uses a large sample of plots from an intensivelytitled rice-growing area of Madagascar and compares land-specificinvestments, land productivity, and land values for titled anduntitled plots cultivated by the same household. Having a titlehas no significant effect on plot-specific investment and correspondinglylittle effect on land productivity and land values. These resultsare broadly consistent with a simulation of a theoretical modelof investment under expropriation risk calibrated to the samedata. A cost–benefit analysis suggests that the currentsystem of formal titling should not be extended in rural Madagascarand that any new system of land registration would have to bequite inexpensive to be worthwhile.