Implied Volatility of Interest Rate Options: An Empirical Investigation of the Market Model

We analyze the empirical properties of the volatilityimplied in options on the 13-week US Treasury bill rate. These options havenot been studied previously. It is shown that a European style put optionon the interest rate is equivalent to a call option on a zero-coupon bond.We apply the LIBOR market model and conduct a battery of validity tests tocompare three different volatility specifications: contact, affine, and exponentialvolatility. It appears that the additional parameter in the affine and theexponential volatility function is not justified. Overall, the LIBOR marketmodel fares well in describing these options.     

国有商业银行改革所面临的困难及改进措施

随着加入WTO后金融领域的逐步开放和外资银行的大批涌入 ,国有商业银行的改革和创新日益紧迫 ,而影响国有商业银行发展和竞争力的根本因素依然存在 ,如资本严重不足、治理结构及经营机制不完善、经营环境不健全等。要解决这些问题 ,不仅需要商业银行本身加大改革力度 ,大胆进行制度创新 ,建立法人治理结构 ,还需要国家有关部门在宏观调控和具体政策上为国有商业银行营造有力的政策和市场环境。     

基于权衡模型的跨国公司资本结构的决定因素分析

跨国公司资本结构问题是国际金融微观领域的研究热点 ,但目前国内研究对此鲜有涉及。本文着重研究了跨国公司资本结构决定的问题 ,在概述了权衡理论的基本思想并考虑了跨国公司经营环境与国内企业的差异后 ,提出基于权衡模型的跨国公司资本结构决定机制的分析框架 ,进而深入研究了跨国公司资本结构的决定因素 :负债节税价值、破产成本和代理成本。     

基于因特网的工程项目环境信息库研究

在工程项目建设过程中，项目经理（业主方）需要查阅和使用项目所处的环境信息。本的目的是探讨利用当代信息技术如何建立一个信息库，为项目经理及时提供全面和准确的环境信息，通过访问专业人士，查阅献，分析典型工程实例，并结合作的工程实践经验，从系统的角度定义了工程项目经理所需用的环境信息，确定了它的分类，建立了它的概念模型，并且详细地介绍了该信息库的技术实现途径。     

The Global Determinants of Direct Office Real Estate Returns

We investigate the determinants of direct office real estate returns by analyzing rents, capital appraisals, and total returns. A recently compiled global database of major cities in Asia, Europe, and the United States provides a unique opportunity to give a macro-view on the effects of economic growth and supply and demand factors on nominal real estate returns. The global database provides quarterly observations from 1986 to 1999. To address the smoothness problem of appraisal-based price data and regulated rents, we employ the Generalized Method of Moments to estimate a dynamic panel-data model. The model allows us to combine the cross-sectional and time-series dimension in our quarterly data. We find that gross domestic product, inflation, unemployment, vacancy rate, and the available stock all have an effect on real estate returns.     

Impact of Divergent Consumer Confidence on Option Prices

This paper investigates the impact of divergent consumer confidence on option prices. To model this, we assume that consumers disagree on the expected growth rate of aggregate consumption. With other conditions unchanged in the discrete-time Black–Scholes option-pricing model, we show that the representative consumer will have declining relative risk aversion instead of the assumed constant relative risk aversion. In this case all options will be underpriced by the Black–Scholes model under the assumption of bivariate lognormality. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Three New Real Estate Price Indices for Geneva,Switzerland

This paper develops constant-quality price indices for three categories of real estate-apartment buildings, vacant land, and condominiums—for the city of Geneva, Switzerland. We use both the hedonic and repeat sales models to estimate the price level and, in turn, the rate of price change. The general pattern of each series suggests that real estate prices in Geneva were fairly stable throughout the 1970s, increased sharply during the 1980s, but gave back some of these gains in the early 1990s. Interestingly, the sharp rise in prices in the second half of the 1980s is very similar to that found in some regions of the United States. We also consider the problem, implicit in the repeat sales method, of revisions in previously estimated price indices as additional data become available in later years.     

Subordinated Market Index Models: A Comparison

The paper compares various processes subordinated to the Wiener process tomodel the leptokurtic characteristics of index returns. Empirical analysisis performed on the Dow Jones and Nikkei 225 indexes. A good model to capturethe typical tail behaviour of these indexes turns out to be a long Studentt distributed one.     

Return and risk in initial public offerings of both shares and warrants

In the past few years there has been an increasing number of new issues of shares of common stock together with warrants intended to raise interest in initial public offerings of relatively young, growing firms. In this study we examine the pricing efficiency of stocks and warrants offered simultaneously to the public as a single unit. We present a model for evaluating the warrants in such offerings and test it empirically against data from the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange, where such offerings have become standard. We find that the issued units are usually undervalued, allowing for significant abnormal positive returns. But, while the warrants are usually underpriced, the stocks are overpriced. Largely consistent with the evidence from other financial markets around the world, we also find abnormal negative rates of return in the long run.