Search results for " asset"
showing 10 items of 187 documents
The Role of Net Interest Margin in Improving Banks’ Asset Structure and Assessing the Stability and Efficiency of their Operations
2014
Abstract Against the background of the growing diversity of financial instruments, technological progress and increasing interconnectedness of financial institutions, ensuring the stability of the banking sector has become an important task for economic policy in every country. This paper shows that net interest margin is the most appropriate criterion for evaluating the effectiveness and stability of banks’ operations. It is superior to the return on assets in illustrating how successfully a bank manages its interest bearing assets. The author analyzes banking sectors in the Baltic countries, the Euro Area as well as the United States and their management strategies, as well as indicators …
On the Relevance of Agency Conflicts in SME Debt Maturity Structure
2015
Previous theoretical research asserts that an optimal policy of debt maturity structure mitigates the various agency conflicts that arise through debt contracts. We test this hypothesis on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), which are very sensitive to agency problems. Such problems mainly arise between owners and debt providers, due to SMEs recording high growth and having few fixed assets and informational asymmetry. We provide evidence on the relevant effect of underinvestment, asset substitution, and overinvestment problems on SME debt structure. Results appear to be robust to both the endogeneity problem of explanatory variables and the censored dependent variable.
STUDY REGARDING THE EVOLUTION OF THE FINANCIAL BALANCE IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
2015
Abstract This article aims at analysing the financial balance within the global pharmaceutical industry, starting from the assumption that „In the pharmaceutical industry there is sufficient liquidity to cover payment obligations”. The analysed companies are part of the exclusive group comprising the top 20 global companies, e.g. GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Sanofi-Aventis and Bayer. The research conducted is based on an analysis over time of the relationship between floating assets, floating assets requirement and net cash from 2006 to 2013, and highlights the main developments of the indicators before the onset of the financial and economic crisis and after its outbreak.
CO2 Prices and Portfolio Management
2008
Since January 2005, the attention on European carbon markets has been increasing and thus the interest in studying the implications of the existence of two new assets in portfolio management. In this article we analyse both the characteristics of the EUAs Phase I and Phase II as a sole investment and the impact of including these two assets, considered separately, in a well-diversified portfolio. In order to control the problems of using historical returns, we have performed this analysis using as expected returns either historical returns or risk-adjusted returns. We find that, although the weights of EUAs are not too important when incorporating the EUAs in an optimal and well-diversified…
Exchange Rate and Inflation Risk Premia in the UME
2012
This paper tests the effects of exchange rate and inflation risk factors on asset pricing in the European Union (EU) stock markets. This investigation is motivated by the results of Vassalou (2000) [Journal of International Money and Finance, 19, 433-70] showing that both exchange rate and foreign inflation are generally priced in equity returns, and the opportunity to evaluate the causality between these sources of risk after the elimination of the EU currency risks because of the adoption of the single currency. Our results show that both exchange rate and inflation risks are significantly priced in the pre- and post-euro periods. Moreover, the size of exchange rate and inflation risk pre…
Dynamic Asset Allocation Strategies Based on Unexpected Volatility
2013
In this paper we document that at the aggregate stock market level the unexpected volatility is negatively related to expected future returns and positively related to future volatility. We demonstrate how the predictive ability of unexpected volatility can be utilized in dynamic asset allocation strategies that deliver a substantial improvement in risk-adjusted performance as compared to traditional buy-and-hold strategies. In addition, we demonstrate that active strategies based on unexpected volatility outperform the popular active strategy with volatility target mechanism and have the edge over the widely reputed market timing strategy with 10-month simple moving average rule.
Can Fiscal Policy Stimulus Boost Economic Recovery?
2011
We assess the role played by fiscal policy in explaining the dynamics of asset markets. Using a panel of ten industrialized countries, we show that a positive fiscal shock has a negative impact in both stock and housing prices. However, while stock prices immediately adjust to the shock and the effect of fiscal policy is temporary, housing prices gradually and persistently fall. Consequently, the attempts of fiscal policy to mitigate stock price developments (e.g. via taxes on capital gains) may severely de-stabilize housing markets. The empirical findings also point to significant fiscal multiplier effects in the context of severe housing busts, which gives rise to the importance of the im…
Green and good? The investment performance of US environmental mutual funds
2011
Increased concern for the environment has increased the number of investment opportunities in mutual funds specialized in promoting responsible environmental attitudes. This article examines the performance and risk sensitivities of US green mutual funds vis-a-vis their conventional peers. We also analyze and compare this performance relative to other socially responsible investing (SRI) mutual funds. In order to implement this analysis, we apply a CAPM-based methodology and find that in the 1987–2009 period, environ- mental funds had lower performance than conventional funds with similar characteristics. However, if we focus on a more recent period (2001–2009), green funds achieved adjuste…
Predicting bond betas using macro-finance variables
2019
We conduct in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting using the new approach of combining explanatory variables through complete subset regressions (CSR). We predict bond CAPM betas and bond returns conditioning on various macro-finance variables. We explore differences across long-term government bonds, investment grade corporate bonds, and high-yield corporate bonds. The CSR method performs well in predicting bond betas, especially in-sample, and, mainly high-yield bond betas when the focus is out-of-sample. Bond returns are less predictable than bond betas.
GARCH models with changes in variance: An approximation to risk measurements
2003
This study aims to model volatility as an approximation to an optimum measurement of stock market risk because of the importance of this concept for, among other things, the proper management of portfolios. Following the proposal of Lamoureux and Lastrapes (1990), the authors consider that the high degree of persistence detected in GARCH models arises from a poor specification of the equation of the variance due to not considering the possible deterministic changes in the unconditional variance of the financial series. To determine the point in time as well as the duration of these changes, the proposal made by Inclan and Tiao (1994) is used. As an empirical application, whether or not the …