Aggregate volatility expectations and threshold CAPM

We propose a volatility-based capital asset pricing model (V-CAPM) in which asset betas change discretely with respect to changes in investors’ expectations regarding near-term aggregate volatility. Using a novel measure to proxy uncertainty about expected changes in aggregate volatility, i.e. monthly range of the VIX index (RVIX), we find that portfolio betas change significantly when uncertainty about aggregate volatility expectations is beyond a certain threshold level. Due to changes in their market betas, small and value stocks are perceived as riskier than their big and growth counterparts in bad times, when uncertainty about aggregate volatility expectations is high. The proposed model yields a positive and significant market risk premium during periods when investors do not expect significant uncertainty in near-term aggregate volatility. Our findings support a volatility-based time-varying risk explanation.     

Excise taxes,over-shifting,cross-elasticity,and tax revenue

This article examines cross-elasticity effects in excise taxation for markets characterized by monopolistic competition and over-shifting. Extending the constant elasticity demand model to consider cross-elasticity leads to notably different results regarding tax revenue maximization. With nonzero but weak cross-elasticity effects relative to the price elasticity, we derive a higher optimal tax-price ratio compared to prior research. With strong cross-elasticity, revenue can continually be increased by raising the excise tax. Overall, the study offers government greater incentive to use excise taxes to obtain revenue.     

NATURAL RESOURCE ABUNDANCE,INSTITUTIONS AND TAX REVENUE MOBILISATION IN SUB‐SAHARA AFRICA

The contribution of natural resources to tax revenues has generally yielded mixed results in the literature. This study asserts that the missing link to explaining these differences is the quality of institutions. More resource revenues reduce tax revenues when institutions are poor. Using an interaction term for natural resources and institutional quality, we show that institutions are decisive for the contribution of natural resources to tax revenue mobilisation. The interaction effect is statistically significant after controlling for per capita gross domestic product (GDP), an alternative measure of quality of institutions and additional regressors. This finding is robust to different econometric specifications and the type of natural resources.     

关税理论的研究综述与评析

从历史渊源上来看，历史上存在着自由贸易关税和保护贸易关税理论的分歧、争论甚至是对立。但就长期的动态利益而言，贸易自由化符合各国的利益，必然成为各国经济发展的主流趋势。所以，WTO原则约束下公平和贸易自由化是对外贸易税收调整的主流方向，但各国在对GATT/WTO的实践中不乏“例外”和“灵活性”，这决定了公平和贸易自由化只能是相对的、渐进的。     

Bayesian Statistical Computations of Nonlinear Financial Time Series Models: A Survey with Illustrations

A survey of Bayesian statistical computations of quadratureformula, Laplace approximation, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms ispresentedand their applications to nonlinear financial time series models arediscussed.     

Structural and executional drivers of downstream revenue

Revenue flows that occur at other related organizational units and over time are an important part of customer profitability analysis and resource planning. This study analyzes downstream revenue generated from establishing a series of additional organizational units. The setting is a central hospital which established a group of specialty outreach clinics. Using a specially-collected time-series database I show two distinct patterns, depending on the clinic's specialty. One type triggers immediate incremental downstream revenue to the clinic's sponsoring department. The other type of clinic generates revenue that is smaller in value, later in time and mostly in departments not associated with the sponsoring department's medical specialty. Structural and executional clinic characteristics such as distance and clinic frequency differentially affect the amount of revenue generated, implying a need for tailoring performance measures to “clinic type”. Overall, my results suggest caution in developing performance measures that include financial impact in other organizational units – context matters even in a relatively homogenous setting of specialty clinics in one hospital system.     

Taiwan's Foreign Exchange Market—Volatile but Still Efficient?

This paper investigates the importance of return heterogeneity and volatility for the foreign exchange rate on the New Taiwan (NT) dollar in terms of the U. S. dollar. We describe the price behavior of the foreign exchange market through the Power GARCH (1,1) and EGARCH (1,1) models. The time knots of market events are found to have deep impacts on the behavior of both market agents and the intraday characteristics of the price process. Evidence also reveals that Taiwan's foreign exchange market is semi-strong efficient.     

A Comparison of Two Quadratic Approaches to Hedging in Incomplete Markets

This paper provides comparative theoretical and numerical results on risks, values, and hedging strategies for local risk-minimization versus mean-variance hedging in a class of stochastic volatility models. We explain the theory for both hedging approaches in a general framework, specialize to a Markovian situation, and analyze in detail variants of the well-known Heston (1993) and Stein and Stein (1991) stochastic volatility models. Numerical results are obtained mainly by PDE and simulation methods. In addition, we take special care to check that all of our examples do satisfy the conditions required by the general theory.     

Exploiting International Stock Market Correlations with Open-end International Mutual Funds

Investors can exploit the correlations between international stock markets by trading no-load, open-end, international mutual funds. These investors in effect cheat passive investors because they buy the mutual funds at their net asset values, which do not reflect information released during the US trading day. The strategy we examine yields an annual rate of return 800 basis points above the S&P500, over a period of almost eight years.