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.     

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.     

When to accept a sequence of gambles

When is a sequence of gambles, which is initially rejected eventually accepted? The eventual acceptance is defined as a pair property between the utility function and the sequences of gambles. A sequence of gambles is accepted when the gambles follow a large deviation principle and the utility function is non-satiated and bounded from below in a certain way. The number of gambles required for acceptance is computed.     

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     

宋代妇女奁产权的探讨

奁产,作为女子出嫁时娘家陪嫁的财产,在普遍受到妇女自身重视的同时,国家也制定了相应的法律条文来保障妇女对自己奁产的所有权。宋代是中国古代经济的一个重要发展阶段,经济的繁荣成为社会文明的基础,妇女也具备一定的权利主体资格,享有一定的法律地位。该文主要从宋代的法律文献入手,着重分析宋代妇女的奁产权及其不完整性,以探讨宋代妇女的经济权利及地位。     

中外纳税人权利问题比较研究

世界各国尤其是发达国家一贯重视纳税人权利问题,在税法中把征纳双方平等的权利与义务作为重要的内容予以规定。与国外相比,我国纳税人权利不论从法律规定还是贯彻落实上都存在一些不足,纳税人地位没有得到应有的提高。通过分析中外纳税人权利地位现状,提出尊重纳税人权利,提高纳税人地位的可能措施。