Efficient Markets Hypothesis and the Emerging Capital Market in Sri Lanka: Evidence from the Colombo Stock Exchange – A Note

The behaviour of stock prices on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) is examined with a view to determine its consistency with the weak form of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH). Runs, Autocorrelation and Cointegration tests are applied to daily, weekly and monthly CSE index data for the period of January 1991–November 1996. Results of Runs, Correlation and Cointegration tests overwhelmingly reject the serial independence hypothesis, leading to the conclusion that the behaviour of stock prices in the Colombo Stock Exchange is not consistent with the weak form of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis. Tests of the-day-of-the-week-effect, however, show that there is no evidence of such a phenomenon on the Colombo Stock Exchange stock prices. Results of the tests of the-month-of-the-year-effect lead to the conclusion that CSE prices do not display any month-specific behaviour.     

Closing small open economy models

The small open economy model with incomplete asset markets features a steady-state that depends on initial conditions and equilibrium dynamics that possess a random walk component. A number of modifications to the standard model have been proposed to induce stationarity. This paper presents a quantitative comparison of these alternative approaches. Five different specifications are considered: (1) A model with an endogenous discount factor (Uzawa-type preferences); (2) a model with a debt-elastic interest-rate premium; (3) a model with convex portfolio adjustment costs; (4) a model with complete asset markets; and (5) a model without stationarity-inducing features. The main finding of the paper is that all models deliver virtually identical dynamics at business-cycle frequencies, as measured by unconditional second moments and impulse response functions. The only noticeable difference among the alternative specifications is that the complete-asset-market model induces smoother consumption dynamics.     

The relevance of currency risk in the EMU

We investigate how the elimination of intra-European exchange risk may affect international financial markets using a conditional version of the International CAPM. We estimate the EMU and non-EMU components of aggregate currency risk and document significant exposures to both. The premium for EMU risk is positive and associated with exposure to the French, Italian and Spanish currencies. The premium for non-EMU risk is consistently negative and accounts for most of the aggregate currency premiums. In the 1990s, exposures to EMU risk declined significantly while exposures to non-EMU risk increased. Hence the adoption of the Euro is unlikely to have a large impact on aggregate currency risk premiums.     

Codes of Conduct in Subcontracting Networks: A Labour Law Perspective

In the past ten years, many European companies organised into subcontracting networks have decided to adopt codes of conduct to regulate labour relations and to ensure the respect of fundamental social rights. This paper first determines the context and the issues to be addressed by codes of conduct within networks of companies, and second analyses the terms under which they can be implemented. The paper argues that codes of conduct can complement the standards developed by States, the European Union or the social partners, but that steps should be taken in order to avoid that these texts replace the existing labour law.     

我国职业经理人存在的问题及改进措施

职业经理人是企业所有者的代表 ,行使着企业经营管理的职能 ,对企业所有者负责。我国职业经理人作为一个阶层还有待形成。建立科学、合理的经营者激励薪酬制度 ,培育职业经理人市场 ,是造就我国职业经理人队伍的关键。     

Are Housing Price Cycles Driven by Irrational Expectations?

This paper investigates the extent to which condominium apartment prices are set in an efficient asset market. Unlike previous work that focuses on the time-series properties of measures of excess returns, the analysis is framed in terms of the changes in observable house prices over time. More precisely, the paper develops and applies a test of the joint null hypothesis of rational expectations, perfect markets, and no risk premium in the Vancouver condominium apartment market. The empirical results provide significant evidence against the joint null hypothesis. On average, ex post house price changes move in a direction opposite to their rational expectation. This approach offers a methodological advantage over the standard efficiency literature and is shown to provide a more powerful test of market efficiency than conventional return regressions. Another contribution of the paper is to characterize the time-series properties of deviations of condominium prices from those predicted by the risk-neutral rational expectations model, using cointegration and random coefficients techniques. Deviations in house price changes from their (risk-neutral) rational expectations are time varying, stationary, and related to the stage of the real estate price cycle.     

From T-Bills to Stocks: Seasonal Anomalies Revisited

This paper employed eleven data series which consist of stocks, bonds, bills, equity premiums, term premiums, and various default premiums to investigate whether January seasonality reported in existing literature is robust across different states of the economy as this has important trading implications. For the periods 1926–1990, small stocks, small stock premiums, low grade bonds, and default premiums (spread between high grade, low grade and government bonds) reveal January seasonality and that the seasonality is robust across different states of the economy except for low grade bond returns and default premiums. January seasonality for low grade bond returns and low grade bond default premiums are primarily driven by results found during periods of economic expansion. Overall, January seasonality is more evident during the economic expansion periods although the magnitude of default premiums is larger during periods of economic contraction. Furthermore, prior findings of strong summer equity returns are primarily driven by the results found during the periods of economic contraction. It is also found that equity returns are generally higher during periods of economic expansion.     

Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results*

We use a vertical product differentiation model under partial market coverage to study the social welfare optimum and duopoly equilibrium when convex costs of quality provision are either fixed or variable in terms of production. We show the following new results. First, under fixed costs, the social planner charges a uniform price for the single variant that just covers costs of quality provision. Like the duopoly equilibrium, this socially optimal pricing entails a partially uncovered market, but a smaller share of the market is served compared with the duopoly equilibrium. Second, for the variable cost case, it is socially optimal to provide both high‐ and low‐quality variants, but market shares need not be equal. This differs from the result in fully covered markets. Third, in the duopoly equilibrium, the quality spread is too wide under variable costs relative to the social optimum. Under fixed costs, the duopoly produces two variants, but quality is too low relative to the social optimum, which has only one variant.     

Futures and forward price differential and the effect of marking‐to‐market: Australian evidence

The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of marking‐to‐market of futures contracts on the price differential between futures and forward contracts based on the predictions of the Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1981) (CIR) model. Cox et al ., (1981) derive a series of propositions with respect to the relationship between futures and forward prices and a set of testable implications. These are tested empirically in this paper using Australian data from November 1991 to June 1997. The results provide evidence of the presence of significant futures and forward price differences, where the futures price is consistently below the forward price. Only partial support is found for the Cox et al ., (1981) propositions, implying that the effect of marking‐to‐market is not able to fully account for the price differential. Therefore, it is not possible to rule out the influence of other institutional factors on the futures‐forward price difference.     

企业家报酬决定中市场标准的权变作用

企业家报酬的决定有着不同的标准 ,按照劳动经济学的观点 ,企业家市场薪酬决定了企业家报酬。在报酬实践中 ,市场工资率的概念也是牢固确立的。基于这种理论 ,应当实行企业家报酬的市场化 ,其实质就是企业家的工资完全由市场决定 ,而不是由政府或者某些部门统一规定