International Journal of Financial Studies — Open Access Journal

In this work, an investigation and analysis are carried out in order to observe the relationship between ethanol spot and futures prices in Brazil. We adopted the Engle and Granger co-integration approach. Also, we consider the information share method proposed by Hasbrouck in order to examine the market efficiency in price discovery and information transmission. Results show that although the futures market is efficient in price discovery and information transmission, the cash market leads the long-run price discovery process. This suggests that the underlying cause of the dominance of the available market over the futures market can be attributed to the market’s relative concentration in wholesale ethanol distribution due to the formation of marketing pools by the ethanol mills, as well as the small number of distributors that control a significant portion of the market share. Full article

In this paper, an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) and a Fixed Rate Mortgage (FRM) are formalized and studied in a simple continuous-time setting under the assumption of a simple one-factor Affine Term Structure (ATS). Through an application of existing results from ATS theory, it is shown that when the short rate reaches a certain pre-determined boundary, the constant payment stream on a new FRM equals the payments on an existing ARM. Hereby, this paper provides a theoretical build-in cap on the formalized ARM. The finite boundary for the short-rate suggests that certain caps on ARMs should (in theory) be offered free of charge. Full article

This paper investigates the interaction between stock prices and real exchange rates by applying monthly data from Turkey for the period between January 2001 and September 2016. This study uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the Error Correction Model (ECM) in order to investigate the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables. The evidence reveals that there is a strong long-run cointegration. The robustness of the ARDL bounds test cointegration was confirmed using the newly-developed combined cointegration, which also provided the same evidence for a strong long-run relationship. The Granger causality test results indicate a long-run bidirectional causality between stock prices and real exchange rates, and also a unidirectional causality from the real exchange rates to the stock prices in the short-run. In order to analyze the validity and reliability of the test results, diagnostic tests were applied in both the short-run and long-run models. Full article

This paper investigates how mutual funds performed in Japan before and after the 2008 outburst of the global financial crisis, that is during the extension of an extraordinary unconventional monetary policy by the Bank of Japan. Style and performance analyses are employed in order to investigate whether active or passive management has been affected by unconventional times and to what extent. Evidence indicates that in four out of eight funds, asset selection presents a significant contribution to returns. The Selection Sharpe Ratios for sectoral and style analyses exhibit positive values added per unit of risk due to active management for the majority of our funds in the pre-Lehman default period. Nevertheless, none of them presents statistical significance according to the t-statistic. Moreover, over the post-Lehman default, only two out of eight funds achieved lower volatility levels and higher returns due to active management. A style drift to big capitalization stocks with low values of book to market ratio is to be held responsible for the outperformance. Overall, our findings imply that active management in a monetary easing environment does not add significant value to the mutual fund performance. Full article

This paper measures and analyzes the technical efficiency of Islamic banks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region during the period 2007–2012. To do this, the bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach was employed in order to provide a robust estimation of the overall technical efficiency and its components: pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency in the case of MENA Islamic banks. The main results show that over the period of study, pure technical inefficiency was the main source of overall technical inefficiency instead of scale inefficiency. This finding was confirmed for all MENA Islamic banks as well as for the two subsamples: Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and non-GCC Islamic banks. Furthermore, our results show that GCC Islamic banks had stable efficiency scores during the global financial crisis (2007–2008) and in the early post-crisis period (2009–2010). However, a decline in overall technical efficiency of all panels of MENA Islamic banks was recorded in the last two years of the study period (2011–2012). Thus, we recommend that MENA Islamic bank managers focus more on improving their management practices rather than increasing their sizes. We also recommend that financial authorities in MENA countries implement several regulatory and financial measures in order to ensure the development of MENA Islamic banking. Full article

This paper investigates the impact of price and real exchange rate volatility on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in a panel of 10 Latin American and Caribbean countries, observed between 1990 and 2012. Both price and exchange rate volatility series are estimated through the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity model (GARCH). Our results obtained, employing the Fixed Effects estimator, confirm the theory of hysteresis and option value, in so far as a statistically significant negative effect of exchange rate volatility on FDI is found. Price volatility, instead, turns out to be positive but insignificant. Moreover, we show that human capital and trade openness are key for attracting foreign capital. From the policy perspective, our analysis suggests the importance of stabilization policies as well as the policy of government credibility in promoting trade openness and human capital formation. Full article

This paper examines the relationship between infrastructure investment activity, capital market development, the role of public institutions and economic development in the Asia Pacific. It adopts a review approach drawing on empirical evidence over recent decades. Infrastructure is shown to be an important asset class playing a central role in a nation’s output, growth, productivity and microeconomic performance. Infrastructure investment also requires investment and predictions of a widening gap in the future supply of infrastructure in the Asia Pacific will require new forms of capital from both traditional and new sources including wider use of private participation, institutional investment, asset recycling and revenue bonds. Capital market development is also necessary to raise long-term local currency finance and evidence suggests that progress with regional capital market integration is slow and a continuing reform agenda is required. The dividend for regional countries is the prospect of higher levels of economic growth with infrastructure investment, capital market development, and foreign direct investment shown to have a strong and positive association with growth. A crucial link in this association identified in the review is the part played by national and regional institutions in improving the efficiency with which infrastructure is managed and providing promising ground for further research where the importance of these links can be researched in greater depth. Full article

From the 1994 bailout policies to the 2015 Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, the policy impact on the Chinese stock market has changed over time. By May 2015, global investors can directly invest in a more legalized and normalized Chinese stock market, whereas they are still concerned about the policy-oriented market and its attendant risks. In this study, we employ the family of GARCH models to investigate the structural changes in risks with the implementation of a series of policies. Our results show that although many policies improve or stabilize the stock market, certain policies lead to substantial volatility. Among them, macro-control policies and transaction cost adjustments are a double-edged sword, which should be used with caution. Furthermore, with opening-up policies being launched recently, the Chinese stock market has entered a new stage in which it affects international capital markets. However, the increased risks, which may result in a sharp turnaround, cause worry. Full article

Non-catastrophic weather risk is gaining importance as climate change becomes more pronounced and economic crisis forces companies to strengthen their cost control. Recent literature proposes weather derivatives as flexible weather risk mitigating tools. Only a handful of studies analysed the feasibility of weather derivatives in industries other than agriculture and energy. The purpose of this paper is to review available weather risk management solutions in retail, present weather derivatives as non-catastrophic weather risk management tools, empirically demonstrate the process of designing weather derivatives and assess their effectiveness as risk mitigating tools in retail. Empirical analysis is performed on beverage sales in 60 large food stores in Croatia, and performance of monthly temperature put options during the summer season is examined. For weather sensitivity analysis of sales, the method of panel regression was used. Results show that weather has a statistically significant effect on beverage sales and that weather derivatives prove to be effective in beverage sales uncertainty reduction. Their effectiveness differs between covered periods and cities. Full article

Seeing that reshaped energy economics literature has adopted some new variables in energy demand function, the number of papers looking into the relationship between financial development and energy consumption at the aggregate level has been increasing over the last few years. This paper, however, proposes a new framework using disaggregated data and investigates the nexus between financial development and sectoral energy consumption in Turkey. To this end, panel time series regression and causality techniques are adopted over the period 1989–2011. Empirical results confirm that financial development does have a significant impact on energy consumption, even with disaggregated data. It is also proved that the magnitude of financial development is larger in energy-intensive industries than in less energy-intensive ones. Full article

The stock beta coefficient literature extensively discusses the proper methods for the estimation of beta as well as its use in asset valuation. However, there are fewer references with respect to the appropriate time horizon that investors should utilize when evaluating the risk-return relationship of a stock. We examine the appropriate time horizon for beta estimation, differentiating our results by sector according to the Industry Classification Benchmark. We employ data from the NYSE and estimate varying lengths of beta employing data from 30 to 250 trading days. The constructed beta series is then examined for the presence of breaks using the endogenous structural break literature. Results show evidence against the use of betas that employ more than 90 trading days of data provisional to the sector under study. Full article

Numerous heavy-tailed distributions are used for modeling financial data and in problems related to the modeling of economics processes. These distributions have higher peaks and heavier tails than normal distributions. Moreover, in some situations, we cannot observe complete information about the data. Employing the efficient estimation method and then choosing the best model in this situation are very important. Thus, the purpose of this article is to propose a new interval for comparing the two heavy-tailed candidate models and examine its suitability in the financial data under complete and censored samples. This interval is equivalent to encapsulating the results of many hypotheses tests. A maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) is used for evaluating the parameters of the proposed heavy-tailed distribution. A real dataset representing the top 30 companies of the Tehran Stock Exchange indices is used to illustrate the derived results. Full article

Strategic decisions are affected by beliefs about the expectations of others and their possible decisions. Thus, strategic decisions are influenced by the social context and by beliefs about other actors’ levels of sophistication. The present study investigated whether strategic decision-making, as measured by the beauty contest game, is associated with social skills, as measured by the Autism Quotient (AQ). In line with our hypothesis, we found that social skills were positively related to successful strategic decision-making. Furthermore, results showed a curvilinear relationship between steps of reasoning in the beauty contest game and social skills, indicating that very high as well as very low scoring individuals on the social skills subscale of the AQ engaged in high-levels of strategic thinking. Full article

This paper assesses the effect of the recent 2014–2015 oil price slump on the financial stability in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The first objective of this paper is to assess how oil price shock propagates within the macroeconomy and how the macro shocks transmit to GCC banks’ balance sheets. This part of the paper implements a System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and a Panel Fixed Effect Model to estimate the response of nonperforming loans (NPLs) to its macroeconomic determinants. The second objective of this paper is to assess any negative feedback effects between the GCC banking systems and the economy. The paper, therefore, implements a Panel VAR model to explore the macro-financial linkages between GCC banking systems and the real economy. The results indicate that oil price, non-oil GDP, interest rate, stock prices, and housing prices are major determinants of NPLs across GCC banks and the overall financial stability in the region. Credit risk shock tends to propagate disturbances to non-oil GDP, credit growth, and stock prices across GCC economies. A higher level of NPLs restricts banks’ credit growth and can dampen economic growth in these economies. The results support the notion that disturbances in banking systems lead to unwanted economic consequences for the real sector. Full article

One of the main characteristics of the (recently proposed) non-arbitrage valuation of equities framework is the reduction in pricing subjectivity. This is evidenced in terms of the dividends discount rate and the outlook of future performance (dividends projection) of the company that is being valued. Under this framework, as in the case of derivatives pricing, the discount rate is the risk-free interest rate (not the cost of equity), and the subjectively-determined drift of the stochastic process that drives the operating profits of the company is eliminated. The challenge that emerges is that the structure of the new drift of the operating profits process is undetermined under the methodology (this is a similar feature that is observed in the case of derivatives related to non-tradable assets). This paper proposes that the structure of this new drift is represented by the (country-specific) GDP nominal growth effect. This proposition is tested through an empirical study that involves several companies of 10 equity indices worldwide, for two different periods (1995–2004 and 2005–2014). The results of the test are reasonably successful, meaning that further research related to the framework could provide useful information for the understanding of financial assets and their links to the macro-economy. Full article

Following the three-pillar structure of the Basel II/III framework, the article categorises and surveys 279 academic papers on operational risk in financial institutions, covering the period from 1998 to 2014. In doing so, different lines of both theoretical and empirical directions for research are identified. In addition, this study provides an overview of existing consortia databases and other publicly available sources on operational loss that may be incorporated into empirical research, as well as in risk measurement processes by financial institutions. Finally, this paper highlights the research gaps in operational risk and outlines recommendations for further research. Full article

The aim of this study is to analyze how depreciation rules influence the decision behavior of investors. For this purpose, we conduct a laboratory experiment in which participants decide on the composition of an asset portfolio in different choice situations. Using an experimental setting with different payment periods, we show that accelerated compared to straight-line depreciation can increase the willingness to invest as hypothesized by theory. However, this expected behavior is only observed in a more complex environment (with a subsidy) and not in a less complex environment (without a subsidy). Full article

We report the results of fifteen sets of portfolio selection simulations using stocks in the ASX200 index for the period May 2000 to December 2013. We investigated five portfolio selection methods, random selection, selection within industrial groups, and three based on neighbor-Net phylogenetic networks. We report that using random, industrial groups, or neighbor-Net phylogenetic networks alone rarely produced statistically significant reduction in risk, though in four out of the five cases in which it did so, the portfolios selected using the phylogenetic networks had the lowest risk. However, we report that when using the neighbor-Net phylogenetic networks in combination with industry group selection that substantial reductions in portfolio return spread were achieved. Full article

In this paper, a new form of weather derivative contract, namely the climatic zone-based growth degree-day (GDD) contract, is introduced. The objective is to increase the risk management efficiency in the agricultural sector of China and to reduce the model dimension of multi-regional temperature-based weather derivatives pricing. Since the proposed contract serves as a risk management tool for all of the cities in the same climatic zone, we compare the risk hedging power between the climatic zone-based and the city-based GDD contracts. As a result, we find that the differences between the two types of temperature-based weather contracts are maintained within a certain range. Full article