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.     

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.     

规范政府采购专家评审机制 完善市场经济体制

本文从政府支出的角度,分析了政府采购制度在健全我国社会主义市场经济体制中的作用,并阐明依法规范政府采购专家评审机制,充分发挥政府采购评审专家作用,是实现我国《政府采购法》的关键。     

Var模型与我国的金融风险管理

Var模型作为金融风险量化管理的有效方法，在国际金融界得到了广泛的认同和应用。本文介绍了Var模型的基本思想及Var值估算的三种具体方法，并对Var模型在中国金融风险管理中的应用前景进行了分析和展望。     

注册会计师的角色认识与监管中的难题思考

从审计市场的供需两方来看,作为以提供审计服务换取收入的注册会计师,不可避免地有着“经济人”的共有特征——追求自身利益最大化,但同时,由于需求方信息使用者的广泛性,注册会计师实际上又肩负着维持市场秩序的社会责任,这正是注册会计师比其他提供劳务的行业受到更多限制的原因所在。从中关独立审计的发展轨迹可见,为了使注册会计师担当好其应有的社会角色,单靠市场或政府都是不可行的,作为公众利益的代言人——政府,如何合理把握市场与政府的界限,做好市场主体权利的配置是各国政府共同面临的难题。     

中国投资者关系管理规范化的障碍与路径

随着经济全球化及人们投资观念的转变，越来越多的上市公司已意识到要保证融资渠道的畅通和公司的持续发展，就必须重视投资关系管理。从证券市场规范发展和国际化着眼，我国上市公司投资关系管理规范化已时不我待，并成为我国证券管理层和理论工作必须研究解决的一个现实问题。     

房地产融资渠道分析

由于国家银根收缩，房地产融资难度增大，加上中国房地产金融体系尚未完善，融资渠道狭窄，在一定程度上限制了我国房地产业的发展。房地产业需要新的融资渠道，如信托、基金、债券等取代传统的银行贷款融资模式。针对新的市场现状，各房地产企业必须加强资本运作能力，扩大融资渠道，创新金融产品。     

国际工程设计与承包市场的相关性分析

依据1995～2004年美国《ENR》杂志公布的数据，运用SPSS软件从国家、地区以及全球的角度，对国际工程设计营业额与工程承包营业额的相关性进行了定量分析，并对分析的结果作了相应的解释。中还结合我国(除港澳台外)国际工程设计和承包市场相关性的特点，提出了发展我国国际工程设计与承包业的建议。