Deviations from Purchasing Power Parity

This study uses univariate and multivariate unit root tests to analyze the random walk behavior of real exchange rates for the period 1979–1989. The univariate test fails to reject the random walk model, but the multivariate test indicates that part of the real exchange rates is predictable, a result supporting purchasing power parity. Further analysis of the random walk component in real exchange rates shows that it is quite persistent: for all currencies it takes about five to eight years for this shock to diminish to half its size.     

Pricing and Hedging of Discrete Dynamic Guaranteed Funds

We derive a risk‐neutral pricing model for discrete dynamic guaranteed funds with geometric Gaussian underlying security price process. We propose a dynamic hedging strategy by adding a gamma factor to the conventional delta. Simulation results demonstrate that, when hedging discretely, the risk‐neutral gamma‐adjusted‐delta strategy outperforms the dynamic delta hedging strategy by reducing the expected hedging error, lowering the hedging error variability, and improving the self‐financing possibility. The discrete dynamic delta‐only hedging not only causes potential overcharge to clients but also could be costly to the issuers. We show that a naive application of continuous‐time hedging formula to a discrete‐time hedging setting tends to worsen these possibilities.     

Job Turnover in China: A Case Study of Shanghai's Manufacturing Enterprises

This article studies the job turnover among manufacturing enterprises in Shanghai during the period from 1989 to 1992. Various indicators of job turnover are calculated. The empirical results demonstrate that types of ownership and firm size are significant factors in accounting for the changes in job generation and job reallocation. Among various types of enterprise, international joint ventures and small firms are more able to create jobs and to generate job reallocation.     

Pricing Discrete Dynamic Fund Protections

Abstract

The authors investigate the pricing of discretely monitored dynamic fund protections when the fund price follows a lognormal process or a constant elasticity of variance (CEV) process. A backward recursive pricing formula is derived. By employing a numerical technique that combines function approximation and numerical quadrature, the authors demonstrate how to complete each recursion level efficiently. Numerical experiments show that the results compare favorably with those obtained by other pricing methods.     

Overreaction in the Hong Kong stock market

Overreaction reported in the equity markets of the United States, Spain, and Brazil is also observed in the Hong Kong stock market. The “loser” portfolios of the 33 stocks in the Hang Seng Index (HSI), on average, outperform the “winner” portfolios by 9.9% 1 year after the formation periods. Besides its emphasis on the importance of the Hong Kong market in international investment, this paper is unique in some special features related to the overreaction study. Hong Kong has markets for index futures and stock futures. Only three stocks are used in the portfolios. All the stocks in the HSI have large market capitalization and liquidity and can be shorted with no up-tick rule. Unlike other studies in international stock markets, the “arbitrage” portfolio of buying the loser portfolio and shorting the winner portfolio can actually be formed with minimum cost and easy execution, which makes the overreaction phenomena in this study very powerful.     

What Ethical Leadership Means to Me: Asian,American, and European Perspectives

Despite the increasingly multinational nature of the workplace, there have been few studies of the convergence and divergence in beliefs about ethics-based leadership across cultures. This study examines the meaning of ethical and unethical leadership held by managers in six societies with the goal of identifying areas of convergence and divergence across cultures. More specifically, qualitative research methods were used to identify the attributes and behaviors that managers from the People’s Republic of China (the PRC), Hong Kong, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the United States (the U.S.), Ireland, and Germany attribute to ethical and unethical leaders. Across societies, six ethical leadership themes and six unethical leadership themes emerged from a thematic analysis of the open-ended responses. Dominant themes for ethical and unethical leadership for each society are identified and examined within the context of the core cultural values and practices of that society. Implications for theory, research, and management practice are discussed.     

Order imbalance and the dynamics of index and futures prices

This study uses transaction records of index futures and index stocks, with bid/ask price quotes, to examine the impact of stock market order imbalance on the dynamic behavior of index futures and cash index prices. Spurious correlation in the index is purged by using an estimate of the “true” index with highly synchronous and active quotes of individual stocks. A smooth transition autoregressive error correction model is used to describe the nonlinear dynamics of the index and futures prices. Order imbalance in the cash stock market is found to affect significantly the error correction dynamics of index and futures prices. Order imbalance impedes error correction particularly when the market impact of order imbalance works against the error correction force of the cash index, explaining why real potential arbitrage opportunities may persist over time. Incorporating order imbalance in the framework significantly improves its explanatory power. The findings indicate that a stock market microstructure that allows a quick resolution of order imbalance promotes dynamic arbitrage efficiency between futures and underlying stocks. The results also suggest that the unloading of cash stocks by portfolio managers in a falling market situation aggravates the price decline and increases the real cost of hedging with futures. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:1129–1157, 2007     

An analysis of members' perspectives of service quality in Hong Kong tourist association membership system

The objectives of the study were (1) to evaluate members' satisfaction and expectation towards the quality of services provided by the HKTA membership system; (2) to identify the performance “gap” between members' satisfaction and expectation in the HKTA membership system; and, (3) to explore the impact of members' satisfaction level in participating in the HKTA membership system. A comprehensive survey was conducted and a Simple Random Sampling plan was used to survey 600 members. It was found that 28 out of 32 attributes had negative performance “gaps.” The likelihood of participating in HKTA activities was dependant on the members' satisfaction in “Increase social awareness,” “Opportunities to liaise with business associates” and “Upgrading staff through training courses.” The implications of the findings were discussed and recommendations were proposed.     

Testing Calendar Effects of International Equity and Real Estate Markets

There are a lot of previous studies on calendar effects. However, most of them use traditional methods like regression. Hui et al. Habitat International 48, 38–45, (2015b) incorporated Shiryaev-Zhou index with logistic regression to study the Halloween and January effects of eight securitized real estate markets, but they fixed the moving-window size to be 130 days. How the change in moving-window size affects the calendar effects cannot be seen. In this study, we also apply the Shiryaev-Zhou index, but we allow the moving-window size to vary. Furthermore, we incorporated Shiryaev-Zhou index with analysis of mean (ANOM) and logistic regression to examine calendar effects of general equity and securitized real estate indices of Hong Kong, Japan, US, UK, France and Germany during the period 1996 – 2014. The results show that our new methods can detect additional channels of significant calendar effects of which normal methods fail to show. Furthermore, the general equity indices show significant Halloween and January effects. However, for the securitized real estate indices, the Halloween and January effects are less significant or even go into reverse in some cases. This study has two main implications. Firstly, investors can formulate a better trading strategy to earn more profits. Secondly, trends and phenomena found in equity markets may not be applicable to real estate markets, so investment rules on equity markets may not work on real estate markets.     

The political economy of exchange rates: The case of the Japanese yen

This paper sets out a political economy model of strategic exchange rates, focusing on the importance of external pressures. In our approach, an exchange rate depreciation is shown to be analytically equivalent to an export subsidy and an import tax. Thus lobbying for exchange rate policy is akin to lobbying for trade policies. Applying our model to the recent history of the Japanese yen, we show that pressures from the US government can theoretically contribute to an appreciation of the Japanese yen. In addition, the yen will still appreciate even if we assume that the Japanese international firms are Aoki-type J-firms.