Stability of international stock market relationships across month of the year and different holding intervals

Potential benefits from international diversification depend upon the stability in stock market relationships. Using monthly data of 11 international stock markets, this paper examines the stability in stock market relationships across month of the year and across different holding intervals. Empirical results show that the correlation structure is more stable than the covariance structure. While empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that the correlation structure is very stable across different holding intervals, the empirical support for the stability in correlation structure across month of the year is much weaker.     

Bounds for Ratios of Posterior Expectations: Applications in the Collective Risk Model

This paper considers the collective risk model for the insurance claims process. We will adopt a Bayesian point of view, where uncertainty concerning the specification of the prior distribution is a common question. The robust Bayesian approach uses a class of prior distributions which model uncertainty about the prior, instead of a single distribution. Relatively little research has dealt with robustness with respect to ratios of posterior expectations as occurs with the Esscher and Variance premium principles. Appropriate techniques are developed in this paper to solve this problem using the k -contamination class in the collective risk model.     

Bounds on the estimation error in the chain ladder method

Buchwalder et al. (2006) have illustrated that there are different approaches for the derivation of an estimate for the parameter estimation error in the distribution-free chain ladder reserving method. In this paper, we demonstrate that these approaches provide estimates that are close to each other for typical parameters. This is carried out by proving upper and lower bounds.     

Literatur

1. A simplified method for the deduction of Sheppard's correction formulae for ordinary and factorial moments, and for semi-invariants, together with more general results than those previously known, especially with regard to the remainder term, has recently been given ¹ H. Wold: Sulla correzione di Sheppard. Giornale dell' Istituto Italiano degli Attuari IV 1934, pp. 304–314. The methods used in the note referred to are similar to those used by W. F. Sheppard in his paper “The Calculation of Moments of a Frequency Distribution”, Biometrika V 1907, pp. 450–459. However, Sheppard's results are not valid under equally general conditions. . The method is based upon a very simple application of Euler—MacLaurin's formula, and the usual corrections are thereby shown to be valid for very general frequency curves, even for those without high contact in one or both directions. The note referred to deals with the case of one variable; the use of the method employed there can, however, easily be extended to an arbitrary number of variables, which extension it is the purpose of this paper to carry through. For the sake of formal simplicity the deductions are performed with two variables; the results can then immediately be generalized.     

Initial Public Offerings on the Unlisted Securities Market: The Impact of Professional Advisers

This paper tests two hypotheses developed in the context of information asymmetry between companies making initial public offerings (IPO) on the Unlisted Securities Market and potential investors. It is argued that the status of the sponsor and audit firm are interpreted by potential investors as signals of an IPO's quality. The results indicate that for IPOs made during 1986–87 the level of discount and the status of the associated auditing firm are significantly related. Higher quality auditing firms are associated with lower levels of discount. A similar relationship for IPOs made during the period 1988–89 is not detected. The paper suggests that there were significant changes in the IPO market between these two periods. No relationship in either period is detected between the level of discount and the status of the sponsor.     

The costs and benefits of increased accounting regulation: a case study of Lloyd's of London

While a valuable literature exists on theoretical considerations in cost-benefit analysis (cba) of accounting regulation, and although the regulators themselves acknowledge the need for cost-benefit appraisal of their work, empirical analysis of the costs and benefits of changes in accounting regulation is almost non-existent. This paper attempts such an analysis for a step change in accounting and audit regulation—at Lloyd's between 1982 and 1985. It aims both to advance the cba methodology, and to inform debate about the evolution of the Lloyd's market. While the estimates do not show whether the changes produced an optimal level or form of Lloyd's regulation, they do suggest that, comparing changes, the extra benefits exceeded the extra costs—whether the chosen accounting unit is a private one—Lloyd's Names—or a social one.     

Dividend valuation,trading and transactions costs: the 1997 partial abolition of dividend tax credit repayments

Although UK resident tax-exempt shareholders lost the right to repayment of tax credits on dividends paid by UK resident companies in July 1997, they could continue to receive tax credit repayments in respect of dividends received from Irish resident companies until December 1998. In July 1997 the rate of tax credit on Irish companies' dividends was 21%, and this was reduced to 11% in December 1997. We obtain insights into the incentives and behaviour of UK tax-exempt investors in response to these changes in the relative ‘tax attractiveness’ of investments in Irish resident companies. We find that only at its highest rate, 21%, was the level of dividend tax credit on Irish companies' dividends sufficient to induce changes in UK tax-exempt shareholders' investment strategies; and that the propensity for dividend capture by tax-exempt investors is heightened when the dividend tax credit yield is of the order of 0.8 or more and dividend yield is of the order of 2.6% or more.     

An analysis of trading strategies in eleven European stock markets

Abstract

In recent years, the validity of the weak form efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has been called into question as several studies have uncovered evidence that technical trading rules have predictive ability with respect to both developed and emerging stock market indices. This study analyses the forecasting power of 2 of the most popular trading rules using index data for a selection of 11 European stock markets over the January 1991 to December 2000 period. The findings indicate that the emerging markets included in this paper are informationally inefficient; these markets displayed some degree of predictability in their share returns, although the developed markets did not. Furthermore, the results point to large differences in the performance of the rules examined; while small size filters consistently outperformed the buy-and-hold strategy in the emerging markets examined even after the consideration of transaction costs, the performance of the moving average rules was erratic and varied dramatically from market to market.     

Excess returns and international diversification: The Scandinavian view

The paper discusses excess returns within four Scandinavian stock markets and also how Scandinavian returns are related to the returns in non-Scandinavian markets. Some underlying reasons for the observed economically weak relationships between markets are reviewed. Moreover, some reasons why the interrelationships between markets can be expected to increase in the future are provided.