Search results for "futures"
showing 10 items of 101 documents
Conclusion: Discourses and Dreams on Becoming
2019
The contents in the chapters in this book have shown how ECEC institutions are both globally linked and locally constructed within networks of powers, discourses, philosophies, paradoxes and practices. The kinds of ‘becoming(s)’ that arise for these young children as a consequence are different – in an increasingly globalised world, we think, these are of great significance in thinking about the present and future realities that are posed accordingly. Thus, with this concluding chapter, we seek to address existing and future challenges, dreams and opportunities in contemplation of a future that we can only imagine, in consideration of the practices and discourses that structure becoming(s) …
Backcasting for desirable futures in Finnish forest-based firms
2020
Purpose In Finland, new forest-based sector (FBS) businesses are seen as important for the transition to the circular bioeconomy. The purpose of this study is to explore the transition of Finnish FBS companies to new business models. The aim is to understand how FBS companies define their ideal future states and related business models for the year 2030. Design/methodology/approach This study uses thematic interviews with managers from various FBS firms and companies from interfacing sectors. In the interviews, the key idea of backcasting was pursued when respondents discussed the desirable future states of their business. Findings The effort to achieve growth of the business and the appea…
Is circular economy the key to transitioning towards sustainable development? Challenges from the perspective of care ethics
2019
Abstract The Sustainable Development Goals represent a global consensus on the urgency to preserve the conditions that make life possible on this planet and ensure a future of wellbeing for humanity. Transforming consumption and production processes is a fundamental priority of this development agenda. Circular Economy has emerged as an alternative model, given its potential for value creation, while generating social and environmental positive impacts. An exploratory study carried out in Navarra (Spain) shows its potentiality for socio-economic and environmental benefits as well as technological, organizational, financial, institutional and social challenges. However, through the lenses of…
'Participative foresight scenario mapping': adapting an MCM method to appraise foresight scenarios for the long term sustainable development of a sma…
2016
Multi-criteria mapping (MCM) appraisal has been used in projects involving decisions related to specific technologies or policies in risk analysis. In this research, MCM has been adapted for appraising in a participative way holistic scenarios for a small isolated island. The procedural novelty relies on how the scenario building and the criteria selection were undertaken. Two scenarios for Flores Island (Portugal) were developed in a two step process involving, firstly, specialised stakeholders and decision-makers, and secondly, lay citizens. The scenarios aimed at proposing alternative visions of future. This article analyses the methodological aspects of the project (scenario development…
Option Pricing and Hedging in the Presence of Transaction Costs and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations
2008
In the presence of transaction costs the perfect option replication is impossible which invalidates the celebrated Black and Scholes (1973) model. In this chapter we consider some approaches to option pricing and hedging in the presence of transaction costs. The distinguishing feature of all these approaches is that the solution for the option price and hedging strategy is given by a nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE). We start with a review of the Leland (1985) approach which yields a nonlinear parabolic PDE for the option price, one of the first such in finance. Since the Leland's approach to option pricing has been criticized on different grounds, we present a justification of…
Efficient analytic approximation of the optimal hedging strategy for a European call option with transaction costs
2006
One of the most successful approaches to option hedging with transaction costs is the utility-based approach, pioneered by Hodges and Neuberger [Rev. Futures Markets, 1989, 8, 222–239]. Judging against the best possible trade-off between the risk and the costs of a hedging strategy, this approach seems to achieve excellent empirical performance. However, this approach has one major drawback that prevents the broad application of this approach in practice: the lack of a closed-form solution. We overcome this drawback by presenting a simple yet efficient analytic approximation of the solution. We provide an empirical testing of our approximation strategy against the asymptotic and some other …
Has the Introduction of Bitcoin Futures on Regulated Exchanges Decreased Price Volatility?
2019
Master's thesis Business Administration BE501 - University of Agder 2019 Bitcoin is a tremendously debated phenomenon in the world of finance and in recent the scientific literature on the topic has expanded. In this thesis,the bitcoin to US dollar exchange rate is examined through various conditional variance models to describe its highly volatile nature. We examine whether the introduction of bitcoin futurescontractsin late 2017 has had a decreasing impact on price volatility by estimatingthe unconditional variance. The log-return of the bitcoin exchange rate is analysed,and there is evidence of volatility clustering and time-varying volatility. Consequently, the variance is modelled thro…
Hedging spark spread risk with futures
2018
Abstract This paper discusses the spark spread risk management using electricity and natural gas futures. We focus on three European markets in which the natural gas share in the fuel mix varies considerably: Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. We find that spark spread returns are partially predictable, and consequently, the Ederington and Salas (2008) minimum variance hedging approach should be applied. Hedging the spark spread is more difficult than hedging electricity and natural gas price risks with individual futures contracts. Whereas spark spread risk reduction for monthly periods produces values of between 20.05% and 48.90%, electricity and natural gas individual hedg…
Causalities between CO2, electricity, and other energy variables during phase I and phase II of the EU ETS
2010
The topic of this article is the analysis of the interplay between daily carbon, electricity and gas price data with the European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) for CO2 emissions. In a first step we have performed Granger causality tests for Phase I of the EU ETS (January 2005 until December 2007) and the first year of Phase II of the EU ETS (2008). The analysis includes both spot and forward markets—given the close interactions between the two sets of markets. The results show that during Phase I coal and gas prices, through the clean dark and spark spread, impacted CO2 futures prices, which in return Granger caused electricity prices. During the first year of the Phase II, the sho…
Psychological interventions to fight against the burden of the informal caregivers
2011
Informal care has been conceptualized as a vital stress factor, which jointly with its chronic character and the lack of foresight about the time of its finalization, has been associated to the negative repercussions on the physical and psychological wellbeing of the informal caregiver. This situation has been generically denominated with the overall term of caregiver burden. Burden is associated with depression and anxiety as well as with abandonment and mistreatment of the dependent person. Optimal psychosocial interventions to be assumed by European Governments in their long - term care systems are still needed to be developed to fight succesfully against this burden.The objective is to …