A through-the-cycle model for retail lending economic capital

Problems in the US mortgage industry have shown weaknesses in the standard regulatory and economic capital approaches. Although a significant amount of discussion is occurring around how to segment portfolios or predict key variables in order to better fit the existing formulas, we believe that a re-examination of existing capital formulas with respect to credit risk is required.In this paper we develop a formula which is specifically tuned to the dynamics of retail loan portfolios and which could be employed for either regulatory capital or economic capital. The key advantages of this approach are that it is based upon a much more accurate model of retail loan defaults, does not require any new data feeds, is based upon readily available modeling frameworks, and can adapt to portfolio changes such as those observed in the US mortgage crisis.     

Comparisons of linear regression and survival analysis using single and mixture distributions approaches in modelling LGD

Estimating the recovery rate and recovery amount has become important in consumer credit due to the new Basel Accord regulation and the increase in the number of defaulters as a result of the recession. We compare linear regression and survival analysis models for modelling recovery rates and recovery amounts, in order to predict the loss given default (LGD) for unsecured consumer loans or credit cards. We also look at the advantages and disadvantages of using single and mixture distribution models for estimating these quantities.     

中国企业的市场存活分析:中间品进口重要吗？

本文基于2000—2007年中国工业企业微观数据和海关贸易数据,采用倾向得分匹配与生存分析方法系统研究了中间品进口对企业生存的微观影响。研究发现中间品进口显著延长了企业的经营持续时间。进一步引入中间品质量差异性和贸易方向的研究表明,中间品进口对企业经营持续时间的正向作用与进口中间品的质量水平呈正比,并且中间产品进口对双向贸易企业生存持续期的影响大于单向贸易企业,对加工贸易企业生存持续期的影响大于一般贸易企业。基于中介效应模型的传导机制检验,认为“成本节约效应”和“技术溢出效应”是中间品进口促进企业市场存活的重要渠道。最后,引入行业差异化的检验结果显示,相比于异质性产品行业的企业,中间产品进口对同质性产品行业中企业生存的积极影响更大,而高质量的中间品进口和双向贸易模式可以进一步强化上述作用。     

Knowledge combinations and the survival of financial services ventures

The paper investigates the role of knowledge in the evolution of new financial services ventures in Sweden between 1990 and 2002. Drawing upon economic theories of human capital and spin-out entrepreneurship, we investigate whether knowledge from prior employment in the financial and technological industries facilitates the survival of new entrepreneurial firms. Based on a database tracking the evolution of 1,077 financial services ventures, we find that firms with more extensive knowledge from the financial services and high-tech sectors have higher chances of survival than firms with more narrow knowledge bases. Our findings offer contributions to the emerging literature on spin-out entrepreneurship and to research on entrepreneurship in services.     

Corporate diversification and CEO turnover in family businesses: self-entrenchment or risk reduction?

Our study investigates differences in CEO turnover between focused and diversified firms to determine whether diversification strategies are necessarily associated with governance efficiency in family businesses. We find that large family CEO firms are more likely to engage in corporate diversification than are small non-family CEO firms and their CEOs are seldom replaced. Large family CEO diversified firms also have lower turnover sensitivity relative to focused firms. The results imply that the CEOs of diversified firms have entrenched themselves, thereby increasing agency costs within family businesses. However, we fail to find diversification discounts in family businesses. It is interesting that CEOs tend to diversify their businesses in order to decrease firm risk. Founding families favor risk-reducing decisions in order to maintain family wealth and prestige; suggesting that family businesses are more interested in survival than growth. Although family businesses may benefit from risk reduction, a negative relationship between diversification level and CEO turnover is still evidence of poor corporate governance. Agency theory may not completely account for the adoption of diversification strategies in family businesses and corporate diversification may weaken the effectiveness of internal monitoring mechanisms.

国际性中心城市规划建设指标体系的比较研究——以上海为例

旨在建立"四个中心"的上海,面对日益激烈的全球竞争,不仅要以国际性中心城市的定位发展,还要充分认识自身的生存目标.本文在对现有城市发展指标体系分析比对的基础上,提出了国际性中心城市规划建设的指标体系,同时也为上海均衡的规划建设提出建议.     

保险公司最优投资及再保险策略

在最大化生存概率和最大化终止时蒯期望效用准则下,通过求解相应的HJB方程,获得了最优投资策略以及最优比例再保险策略的闭式解.这一研究结果易于实时操作,对投资者的决策有直接的指导意义.     

Survival analysis of the Spanish hotel industry

The main objective of this study is an analysis of survival in the Spanish hotel industry. We used a sample of 1033 hotels opened from 1997 to 2009, examining financial and non-financial variables, including size; location; type of hotel; management, economic and financial structure and the year they opened, whether during an expansion or crisis period. The methodology included an econometric analysis of survival, using the non-parametric Kaplan–Meier estimator of constructed variables, in order to detect the particular influence of each variable. Semi-parametric regression was done with the Cox proportional hazards model, confirming which variables clearly influenced the survival of hotels and which signs existed for each analysed variables’ influence. The survival of hotels depends on their size, location, management and launch in a time of prosperity. However, survival rates were not significantly tied to particular types of hotels or configurations of their economic and financial structures.     

Market power, survival and accuracy of predictions in financial markets

In a standard General Equilibrium framework, we consider an agent strategically using her large volume of trade to influence asset prices to increase her consumption. We show that, as in Sandroni (Econometrica 68:1303–1341, 2000) for the competitive case, if markets are dynamically complete and some general conditions on market preferences are met then this agent’ long-run consumption will vanish if she makes less accurate predictions than the market, and will maintain her market power otherwise. We thus argue that the Market Selection Hypothesis extends to this situation of market power, in contrast to Alchian (J Pol Econ 58:211–221, 1950) and Friedman (Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1953) who claimed that this selection was solely driven by the competitiveness of markets. I would like to thank T. Hens, A. Kirman and A. Sandroni for many stimulating conversations and encouragements. Two anonymous referees also provided very valuable comments.     

Dynamic optimization with a nonsmooth, nonconvex technology: the case of a linear objective function

This paper studies a one-sector optimal growth model with linear utility in which the production function is only required to be increasing and upper semicontinuous. The model also allows for a general form of irreversible investment. We show that every optimal capital path is strictly monotone until it reaches a steady state; further, it either converges to zero, or reaches a positive steady state in finite time and possibly jumps among different steady states afterwards. We establish conditions for extinction (convergence to zero), survival (boundedness away from zero), and the existence of a critical capital stock below which extinction is possible and above which survival is ensured. These conditions generalize those known for the case of S-shaped production functions. We also show that as the discount factor approaches one, optimal paths converge to a small neighborhood of the capital stock that maximizes sustainable consumption.This paper is dedicated to Professor Mukul Majumdar on his 60th birthday. His research with various co-authors in the late 70s and the 80s pioneered innovative techniques for the analysis of nonconvex dynamic optimization models – both deterministic and stochastic. Roy considers himself particularly fortunate for having had the opportunity to learn economic theory and mathematical economics from Professor Majumdar. This paper has benefited from helpful comments and suggestions by an anonymous referee. Financial support from the 21st Century COE Program at GSE and RIEB, Kobe University, is gratefully acknowledged.