森林资源资产组合随机控制模型及决策

在界定了森林生态资产与森林资源资产组合概念的基础上,构建和模拟了基于随机控制理论的森林资源资产组合模型,为森林经营管理者提出了相应的结论和建议:森林经营管理者可以根据最优采伐量与木材价格、补偿价格、成本系数、税率、贴现率、生长率等参数之间的关系,获得在市场经济变动条件下的最优森林资产组合,以保证森林资产净收益的稳定增长。     

How can investors build a better portfolio in small open economies? Evidence from Asia’s Four Little Dragons

This study investigates the role of hedging and portfolio design among stocks, exchange rates, and gold in small open economies (SOEs) from 4 January 2000 to 31 March 2020. We adopt the trivariate dynamic conditional correlation-fractionally integrated asymmetric power ARCH model and unconditional quantile regression model, and our findings show that the hedging role of the U.S. dollar (USD) and gold against stocks differs under regular and extreme market conditions. The USD can act as a powerful hedge asset for stocks in regular market periods. Moreover, during the global financial crisis and COVID-19 outbreak, the safe-haven effect of gold becomes stronger for almost all stocks, whereas the USD can serve as a strong safe haven against stock markets of Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore when stock returns are extremely low. In terms of portfolio designing, we find that adding the USD and gold to portfolios improves their hedging effectiveness, and the optimally weighted stock-USD-gold portfolio is the best portfolio strategy, irrespective of referring to return or risk.     

IT外包的投资、再谈判机制分析

本文从IT承包商(vendor)和客户(client)的角度考虑去设计最优契约。由于客户方的需要,或者是由于契约的不完全性导致契约经常需要再谈判,而且由于契约修改后的执行问题也可能引起法律诉讼,因此对于如何决定事前的投资、谈判利润分配和契约诉讼的赔偿都是一系列要解决的问题,本文正是根据这些问题的提出而逐步展开的。     

REAL OPTIONS WITH COMPETITION AND REGIME SWITCHING

In this paper, we examine irreversible investment decisions in duopoly games with a variable economic climate. Integrating timing flexibility, competition, and changes in the economic environment in the form of a cash flow process with regime switching, the problem is formulated as a stopping‐time game under Stackelberg leader‐follower competition, in which both players determine their respective optimal market entry time. By extending the variational inequality approach, we solve for the free boundaries and obtain optimal investment strategies for each player. Despite the lack of regularity in the leader's obstacle and the cash flow regime uncertainty, the regime‐dependent optimal policies for both the leader and the follower are obtained. In addition, we perform comprehensive numerical experiments to demonstrate the properties of solutions and to gain insights into the implications of regime switching.     

Why do firms delete brands? Insights from a qualitative study

Large consumer goods firms manage and market an assortment of brands and consistently deal with strategic challenges related to brand portfolio management, such as creating or acquiring brands, growing brand equity, managing brands in the portfolio and deleting brands. There is substantial research on several areas of brand portfolio management except in the area of brand deletion. This situation exists despite the fact that deleting weak brands has important implications for a firm and its brand portfolio. Therefore, it is critical to understand why firms delete brands from their portfolios. This research applies a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis in the context of firms that adopt a ‘house of brands’ brand architecture and presents findings guided by the strategic decision-making literature.     

Corporate Lobbying and Firm Performance

Corporate lobbying activities are designed to influence legislators, regulators and courts, presumably to encourage favorable policies and/or outcomes. In dollar terms, corporate lobbying expenditures are typically one or even two orders of magnitude larger than spending by Political Action Committees (PAC), and, unlike PAC donations, lobbying amounts are direct corporate expenditures. We use data made available by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to examine this more pervasive form of corporate political activity. We find that, on average, lobbying is positively related to accounting and market measures of financial performance. These results are robust across a number of empirical specifications. We also report market performance evidence using a portfolio approach. We find that portfolios of firms with the highest lobbying intensities significantly outperform their benchmarks in the three years following portfolio formation.     

Vertical alliance portfolios and the business performance of small technology-based firms

This paper discusses how small technology-based firms (STBFs) effectively manage vertical alliances by choosing proper alliance structures to both manage challenges and pursue higher performance. We consider the main challenges of STBFs’ vertical alliances as opportunistic risk and coordination concern between partners, and derive four types of vertical alliance portfolios with different extents of risk and return based on the relational perspective. We then examine the impact of each portfolio on performance and the moderating effect of STBFs’ age and technological capability. The results show the portfolio focusing on bilateral alliances is not helpful for STBFs, while the others are useful. The portfolio focusing on unilateral alliances promises young firms better performance, while hybrid portfolios of unilateral and bilateral alliances are more helpful for older STBFs. In hybrid portfolios, bilateral alliance in the upstream is beneficial to specific technology-focused firms, while bilateral alliance in the downstream is recommended to STBFs whose technology covers a wider range.     

Optimal Social Insurance with Endogenous Health*

In this paper, I analyze optimal insurance against unemployment and disability in a private information economy with endogenous health and search effort. Individuals can reduce the probability of becoming disabled by exerting prevention effort. I show that the optimal sequence of consumption is increasing for a working individual and constant for a disabled individual. During unemployment, decreasing benefits are not necessarily optimal. The prevention constraint implies increasing benefits while the search constraint demands decreasing benefits while being unemployed. However, if individuals respond sufficiently to search incentives, the latter effect dominates the former and the optimal consumption sequence is decreasing during unemployment.     

Shortfall aversion

Shortfall aversion reflects the higher utility loss of spending cuts from a reference than the utility gain from similar spending increases. Inspired by Prospect Theory's loss aversion and the peak‐end rule, this paper posits a model of utility from spending scaled by past peak spending. In contrast to traditional models, which call for spending rates proportional to wealth, the optimal policy in this model implies a constant spending rate equal to the historical peak when wealth is relatively large. The spending rate increases when wealth reaches a model‐determined multiple of peak spending. In 1926–2015, shortfall‐averse spending is smooth and typically increasing.     

FX Intervention in the New Keynesian Model

We develop an open-economy New Keynesian Model with foreign exchange (FX) intervention in the presence of a financial accelerator and shocks to risk appetite in international capital markets. We obtain closed-form solutions for optimal monetary and FX intervention policies assuming the central bank cannot commit to future policies, and we compare the solution to that under policy commitment. We show how FX intervention can help reduce the volatility of the exchange rate, of inflation, and of the output gap, thus mitigating welfare losses associated with shocks in the international capital markets. We also show that, when the financial accelerator is strong, there is a risk of indeterminacy (self-fulfilling currency and inflation movements) although FX intervention can reduce this risk and thus reinforce the credibility of the inflation targeting regime. Model simulations match well the impact of a VIX shock obtained by local projections on a panel of inflation targeting emerging markets.