Portfolio effects in conglomerate mergers: the empirical evidence of leverage effects in Korean liquor market

In the article, we implement an empirical test on the portfolio effects of conglomerate mergers, using the data of Korean liquor market during the period 1990–2008 in which there have been several important conglomerate mergers between beer and soju companies. We find that the combined company could take the advantage of regional market dominance in the beer market in expanding regional market shares in the soju market. Such leverage effects are differentiated from the efficiency-enhancing portfolio effects that result in the combined company’s expanding shares over all regional soju markets regardless of the presence of dominance in the beer market. The common distribution channels of liquor wholesalers seem to play a pivotal role in the combined firm’s expansion of dominance in one market into another. Furthermore, we implement separate empirical tests for two subsamples of regionally dominant and nondominant soju companies in order to differentiate the leverage effects of foreclosure from those of toehold. The empirical results show the evidence of leverage effects only for a sample of nondominant soju companies. This implies that the leverage effects of conglomerate mergers between beer and soju companies in Korea had pro-competitive effects in that the combined firm could compete more effectively with regionally dominant companies with the leverage of dominance in the beer market as toehold.     

A Generalized Cameron–Martin Formula with Applications to Partially Observed Dynamic Portfolio Optimization

The optimal dynamic allocation problem for a Bayesian investor is addressed when the stock's drift—modeled as a linear mean-reverting diffusion—is not observed directly but only via the measurement process. Adopting a martingale approach, an appropriate generalization of the Cameron–Martin (1945) formula then enables computation of both the optimal dynamic allocation and the value function for a general utility function, in terms of an inverse Laplace transform of an explicit expression. Moreover, closed-form formulas are provided in the case of power utility.     

中国外汇储备适度规模分析

截至2007年6月中国外汇储备已达13326亿美元。如此巨额的外汇储备引起了政府与学者的广泛关注。合理的外汇储备结构与中国的经济发展的水平应当保持一致,适应世界经济、金融形势变化。在国际金融市场风云突变的今天,持有的外汇越多,承担的汇率风险也就越大。稍有不慎,持有巨额的外汇储备就会面临风险,不仅不会带来收益,还可能遭受损失。因此,中国的外汇储备管理问题重要性日益凸现。     

The Effect of Socially Responsible Investing on Portfolio Performance

More and more investors apply socially responsible screens when building their stock portfolios. This raises the question whether these investors can increase their performance by incorporating such screens into their investment process. To answer this question we implement a simple trading strategy based on socially responsible ratings from the KLD Research & Analytics: Buy stocks with high socially responsible ratings and sell stocks with low socially responsible ratings. We find that this strategy leads to high abnormal returns of up to 8.7% per year. The maximum abnormal returns are reached when investors employ the best‐in‐class screening approach, use a combination of several socially responsible screens at the same time, and restrict themselves to stocks with extreme socially responsible ratings. The abnormal returns remain significant even after taking into account reasonable transaction costs.     

Do Inflation‐Linked Bonds Still Diversify?

The diversifying power of inflation-linked (IL) bonds relative to traditional asset classes has changed significantly. In this paper, we study the dynamics of conditional volatilities and correlations for three asset classes, IL bonds, nominal bonds and equities, in the USA and Europe. Using a DCC-MVGARCH for the period 1997–2007, we highlight the change that took place in 2003. Although IL bonds once had definite diversification power, they are now highly correlated with nominal bonds and have reached similar volatility levels. As a result, the two asset classes are practically substitutable. This seems to be due to more stable inflation expectations and to a more liquid IL bond market. Although diversification was a valuable reason for introducing IL bonds in a global portfolio before 2003, this is no longer the case. Dynamic portfolio optimisation using our estimates of conditional correlations and volatilities clearly demonstrates that the optimal weight of IL bonds in a portfolio decreased sharply in 2003 in favour of nominal bonds and equities.     

Consumption and Portfolio Selection with Labor Income: A Continuous Time Approach

This paper studies the consumption and portfolio selection problem of an agent who is liquidity constrained and has uninsurable income risk. The paper investigates how the optimal consumption and asset allocation policies deviate from the case where the financial market is perfect, i.e., the case where there are no liquidity constraints and uninsurable income risk. In particular, the paper shows that, for a given level of financial wealth and labor income, optimal consumption is smaller and the optimal level of risk taking is lower in the case where the agent is liquidity constrained and has uninsurable income risk than in the case where the financial market is perfect. The paper also discusses how the agent assesses the value of lifetime labor income and relates this evaluation to optimal consumption and asset allocation policies.     

Comparative assessment of tourist generating markets for New Zealand

Portfolio analysis has become a widely used strategic planning tool in many industries during the past decade. Strategic decisions in the tourism industry include issues such as which markets are most attractive (e.g. have greatest visitor expenditure potential); in which markets are a specific country's “products” most competitive; how promotional budgets should be allocated for greatest effectiveness; and what the promotional message should convey. Industry Attractiveness Analysis—a flexible variety of portfolio analysis—has been applied to the generating countries which supply tourists to New Zealand in an illustrative case study. Both national level and individual company applications are described and illustrated in 3 × 3 matrix form. These diagrams are, in themselves, a good communication mechanism which encourages rational, strategic thinking about managerial decisions and resources allocations. Past, present, and future situations can be portrayed in a graphically useful manner.     

On-Line Portfolio Selection Using Multiplicative Updates

We present an on-line investment algorithm that achieves almost the same wealth as the best constant-rebalanced portfolio determined in hindsight from the actual market outcomes. The algorithm employs a multiplicative update rule derived using a framework introduced by Kivinen and Warmuth. Our algorithm is very simple to implement and requires only constant storage and computing time per stock in each trading period. We tested the performance of our algorithm on real stock data from the New York Stock Exchange accumulated during a 22-year period. On these data, our algorithm clearly outperforms the best single stock as well as Cover's universal portfolio selection algorithm. We also present results for the situation in which the investor has access to additional "side information."     

企业年金基金投资:基于理论模型和实践经验的研究

本文回顾了西方养老基金投资领域的研究文献。国际经验研究说明企业年金的投资组合和发起企业的经营活动现金收益率有密切关系。本文提出了一个考虑发起企业的经营活动现金回报率之后的年金组合理论模型,分析了当前我国三类企业年金的投资组合现实,提出了相应政策建议。