Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Theories And Practices Of Islamic Finance And Exchange Laws: Poverty Of Interest, Ahmed E. Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

Understanding The Mind Of The Risk Manager, Emmanuel Moore Abolo Dr.

Dr. Emmanuel Moore Abolo

The human mind is very complex and for the risk manager the complexity is even more complex. A good risk manager must leave the comfort of his zone and enter the mind of the world to be successful.

Con El Euro, Sin El Euro... ¿O Contra El Euro?, Luis González Vaqué

Luis González Vaqué

The name 'euro' was officially adopted on 16 December 1995. The 'euro' was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999, replacing the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1 (US$1.1743). Physical euro coins and banknotes entered into circulation on 1 January 2002, making it the day-to-day operating currency of its original members.

LINK: http://fliphtml5.com/zxub/sjvx/basic

Rate Setting And Disclosure In Continuing Care Retirement Communities (Ccrcs), Seth C. Anderson, Jeffrey E. Michelman, Raymond M. Johnson, Kristi Quick

Jeffrey E Michelman

By 2026, the population of Americans age 65 and older will double to 71.5 million. According to a recent study by Metlife, et al., there are five important issues that impact both current and future retirees: Increased longevity with Americans living longer; Changing economic factors such as increased health care costs; A growing skills shortage in many industries; Different beliefs about work among the aging Baby Boomer generation; and Financial resources available for retirement. All five of these factors affect both the ways seniors plan for retirement and the ways that organizations providing services to seniors must respond. Continuing care …

State And Local Anti-Predatory Lending Laws: The Effect Of Legal Enforcement Mechanisms, Raphael W. Bostic, Kathleen C. Engel, Patricia A. Mccoy, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Susan M. Wachter

Patricia A. McCoy

Subprime mortgage lending has grown rapidly in recent years and with it, so have concerns about predatory lending. In response to evidence of predatory lending, most states have enacted new laws or expanded existing laws to address abuses in the subprime home loan market. The effect of these statutes is a matter of debate. This paper seeks to improve the understanding of this increasingly important issue and pays particular attention to the role that legal enforcement mechanisms play in this context. The results of the analysis are consistent with the view that anti-predatory lending laws influence subprime lending markets and …

Project Finance: Transactional Evidence From Australia, Michael Regan

Michael Regan

The international project finance market is experiencing a period of significant change. The new Basel III capital adequacy rules will make it harder for banks to provide long-term project finance, and alternative sources of finance such as the shadow banking sector, fund managers, sovereign wealth funds, and institutional investors will take time to bridge the financing gap. In the meantime, it is difficult to source project finance for tenors beyond seven years, risk premiums are higher, and finance is difficult to source. Recent innovations in the form of the European Investment Bank’s Project Bond Initiative, and the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund …

The Vehicle Quota System In Singapore: An Assessment, Winston T. H. Koh, David K. C. Lee

David LEE Kuo Chuen

This paper reviews the developments since the vehicle quota system was introduced in Singapore in May 1990. We discuss the bidding strategies for the certificates of entitlement (COE) under both the transferable and nontransferable auctions, as well as the equity of the present system and the desirability of transferable COEs. We argue that the COE auction should be made discriminatory and propose an alternative system of COE auction that we feel is both equitable and at the same time politically acceptable. We also survey developments in market competition in the car industry.

Share-Price-Changes-Volume Relation On The Singapore Equity Market, David K. C. Lee, Mohamed Ariff

David LEE Kuo Chuen

A critical review of the literature on security-price-changes-volume research suggests that the published studies in the United States and one each in Hong Kong and Japan have largely ignored the impacts on the results from autocorrelation, non-normality of distributions, heteroscedasticity and non-linear functional forms. Therefore, the reported findings are not robust. In testing for this relation from a small sample of continuously traded shares in the Singapore share market, we find that consistent results may not be obtained because of violations of basic test conditions. A task that remains is an application of alternative test models with data transformation using …

Housing Policies In Singapore: Evaluation Of Recent Proposals And Recommendations For Reform, Sock Yong Phang, David K. C. Lee, Alan Cheong, Kok Fai Phoon, Karol Wee

David LEE Kuo Chuen

The Singapore housing market is unusual in its high homeownership rate, the dominance of HDB housing, and the extensive intervention of the government in regulating housing supply and demand in both the HDB and private housing sectors. Recent rapid population increases in a low interest rate and high global liquidity environment has resulted in accelerated house prices increases in Singapore. Earlier this year, the government launched “Our Singapore Conversation” of which discussion on housing policies constitutes one major component. This “conversation” comes in the wake of several consecutive rounds of measures to stabilize housing prices using various instruments. This paper …

Singapore's Financial Market: Challenges And Future Prospects, Kuo Chuen Lee, Kok Fai Phoon

David LEE Kuo Chuen

No abstract provided.

Long Memory And Asia Crisis: Implication For Capital Controls And Management, Kuo Chuen David Lee

David LEE Kuo Chuen

“Financial markets are given to excesses and if a boom/bust sequence progresses beyond a certain point, it will never revert to where it came from. Instead of acting like a pendulum, financial markets have recently acted more like a wrecking ball, knocking over one economy after another.” - A testimony before the US House Banking Committee, Sep, 1998. There are three parts to this paper. The first part examines the time series behaviour of the equity indices of ten countries. Using Robinson (1995a)’s modified GPH estimator and Robinson (1994a)’s average periodogram estimator for the differencing parameter, we have detected that …

An Evaluation Of Hedge Funds: Risk, Return And Pitfalls, Francis Koh, David K. C. Lee, Kok Fai Phoon

David LEE Kuo Chuen

Hedge funds are collective investment vehicles fast becoming popular with high net worth individuals as well as institutional investors. These are funds that are often established with a special legal status that allows their investment managers a free hand to use derivatives, short sell and exploit leverage to raise returns and cushion risk. Given that they have substantial latitude to invest, it is instructive to examine the performance of hedge funds as compared to other forms of managed funds. This paper provides an overview of hedge funds and discusses their empirical risk and return profiles. It also poses some concerns …

Semiparametric Exploration Of Long Memory In Stock Prices, David K. C. Lee, Peter M. Robinson

David LEE Kuo Chuen

New or modified methods for semiparametric analysis of fractional long memory in time series are described and applied to twenty-six stock prices and two stock indices. Evidence is found that some, but not all, of the stocks have long memory, while one of the indices exhibits mean reversion.

Market Structure And Growth Potential Of Singapore Reits, Cher Chiew Francis Koh, Kuo Chuen Lee, Kok Fai Phoon, Ee Seng Seah

David LEE Kuo Chuen

No abstract provided.

Managing The Risks In Financial Inclusion And Agency Banking, Emmanuel Moore Abolo Dr.

Dr. Emmanuel Moore Abolo

Ensuring access to appropriate financial products and services needed by vulnerable groups such as weaker sections and low income groups at an affordable cost in a fair and transparent manner by mainstream institutional poses risks that must be managed in an enterprise-wide form for greater impact.

The Delinquency Of Subprime Mortgages, Michelle A. Danis, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Anthony Pennington-Cross

The lag between the time that a borrower stops making payments on a mortgage and the termination of the loan plays a critical role in the costs borne by both borrower and lender on defaulted loans. While the prior literature uses a multinomial logit approach, statistical tests indicate that we cannot accept the associated assumption of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA). Using a nested logit specification our results suggest that the recipe for delinquency involves young loans to low credit score borrowers with low or no documentation in housing markets with moderately volatile and flat or declining nominal house prices.

The Termination Of Subprime Hybrid And Fixed Rate Mortgages, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Giang Ho

Anthony Pennington-Cross

Adjustable-rate and hybrid loans have been a larger component of subprime mortgage lending in the mortgage market than prime lending. The typical adjustable-rate loan in subprime is a hybrid of fixed and adjustable characteristics in which the first 2 years are fixed and the remaining 28 years adjustable. Hybrid loans terminate at elevated probabilities even before the first adjustment date. Hybrid loan terminations are sensitive to interest rates and teaser rates (payment shocks). Default probabilities increase dramatically when payment shocks are mixed with low or no equity in the home. This is the mixture of events that helped to trigger …

Local Predatory Lending Laws: Going Beyond North Carolina, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Giang Ho

Anthony Pennington-Cross

Following the lead of federal regulations, numerous states, counties and cities have enacted laws designed to reduce predatory lending. There is at least anecdotal evidence that predatory or abusive mortgage lending is primarily concentrated in the subprime market. However, the impact of these local predatory lending laws on the subprime mortgage market is unknown. The primary questions we examine are: do these laws affect the supply and flow of subprime mortgage credit and does the experience in North Carolina, the first state to enact a local predatory lending law, apply to other local laws?

The Impact Of State Anti-Predatory Lending Laws: Policy Implications And Insights, Raphael W. Bostic, Kathleen C. Engel, Patricia A. Mccoy, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Susan M. Wachter

Anthony Pennington-Cross

The subprime mortgage market, which consists of high-cost loans designed for borrowers with weak credit, has grown tremendously over the past ten years. Between 1993 and 2005, the subprime market experienced an average annual growth rate of 26 percent. As this market emerged, so did allegations that subprime loans contained predatory features or were the result of predatory sales practices.3 In the worst cases, brokers deceived borrowers about the meaning of loan terms or falsely promised to assist them in obtaining future refinance loans with better terms. In other situations, borrowers entered into loans with low teaser rates, not aware …

Interest Rates In The Sub-Prime Mortgage Market, Souphala Chomsisengphet, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Anthony Pennington-Cross

No abstract provided.

Predatory Lending Laws And The Cost Of Credit, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Giang Ho

Anthony Pennington-Cross

Various states and other local jurisdictions have enacted laws intending to reduce predatory and abusive lending in the subprime mortgage market. These laws have created substantial geographic variation in the regulation of mortgage credit. This article examines whether these laws are associated with a higher or lower cost of credit. Empirical results indicate that the laws are associated with at most a modest increase in cost. However, the impact depends on the product type. In particular, loans with fixed (adjustable) rates are associated with a modest increase (decrease) in cost.

The Impact Of Local Predatory Lending Laws On The Flow Of Subprime Credit, Giang Ho, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Anthony Pennington-Cross

Local authorities in North Carolina, and subsequently in at least 23 other states, have enacted laws intending to reduce predatory and abusive lending. While there is substantial variation in the laws, they typically extend the coverage of the Federal Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) by including home purchase and open-end mortgage credit, by lowering annual percentage rate (APR) and fees and points triggers, and by prohibiting or restricting the use of balloon payments and prepayment penalties. Empirical results show that the typical local predatory lending law tends to reduce rejections, while having little impact on the flow (application …

The Role Of Geographic Proximity And Industrial Structure In Metropolitan Area Business Cycles, Michael Hollar, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Anthony Yezer

Anthony Pennington-Cross

Measurement and prediction of aggregate economic fluctuations at the region, state, and metropolitan area level is a major challenge. As data quality and analytical techniques have improved, the analysis of coincident economic cycle indicators (CEI) has progressed from national to regional to state levels. This paper continues the trend of geographic disaggregation by constructing and analyzing CEI at the MSA level. The theoretical advantage of MSA level indexes is that they reflect labor market areas. Given lack of quarterly economic time series at the MSA level, we construct a new variable, the EPI (export price index). The EPI is an …

Credit Rationing In The U.S. Mortgage Market: Evidence From Variation In Fha Market Shares, Brent W. Ambrose, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Anthony M. Yezer

Anthony Pennington-Cross

This paper examines the nature of mortgage credit rationing across geographic markets and time. Particular attention is paid to the response of conventional mortgage supply to higher risk conditions associated with regional recessions. We develop a series of four indirect tests based on the spatial variation of the FHA share of mortgages, both endorsements and applications, as well as FHA and conventional rejection rates. Results of these four tests indicate that conventional mortgage underwriting criteria do not become more flexible and may even become more demanding when local economic conditions deteriorate. This result indicates the use of non-price credit rationing …

Borrower Self-Selection, Underwriting Costs, And Subprime Mortgage Credit Supply, Joseph Nichols, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Anthony Yezer

Anthony Pennington-Cross

In the U.S., households participate in two very different types of credit markets. Personal lending is characterized by continuous risk-based pricing in which lenders offer households a continuous distribution of borrowing possibilities based on estimates of their creditworthiness. This contrasts sharply with mortgage markets where lenders specialize in specific risk categories of borrowers and mortgage supply is stepwise linear. The contrast between continuous lending for personal loans and discrete lending by specialized lenders for mortgage credit has led to concerns regarding the efficiency and equity of mortgage lending. This paper sheds both theoretical and empirical light on the differences in …

Measuring The Drivers Of Metropolitan Growth: The Export Price Index, Michael Hollar, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Anthony Yezer

Anthony Pennington-Cross

The Export Price Index (EPI) is a measure of exogenous price shocks to a city’s export industries. Thus far the EPI has been used to estimate models of metropolitan statistical area employment demand and appears to capture exogenous demand shocks to the regional economy. This article explains the intuition behind and construction of the EPI. Glaeser (2008) has noted that because “the economic theory of cities emphasizes a search for exogenous causes of endogenous outcomes like local wages, housing prices, and city growth, it is unsurprising that the economic empirics on cities have increasingly focused on the quest for exogenous …

Subprime Refinancing: Equity Extraction And Mortgage Termination, Anthony Pennington-Cross, Souphala Chomsisengphet

Anthony Pennington-Cross

This article examines the choice of borrowers to extract wealth from housing in the high-cost (subprime) segment of the mortgage market and assesses the prepayment and default performance of these cash-out refinance loans relative to the rate of refinance loans. Consistent with survey evidence, the propensity to extract equity is sensitive to the relative interest rates of other forms of consumer debt. After the loan is originated, results indicate that cash-out refinances perform differently from non-cash-out refinances. For example, cash-outs are less likely to default or prepay, and the termination of cash-outs is more sensitive to changing interest rates and …

The Evolution Of Real Estate In The Economy, Dapeng Hu, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Anthony Pennington-Cross

While the economy as a whole has been rapidly changing in response to technological innovation, real estate has evolved from a depository of wealth for households and assets for corporations into a major force in the debt and equity markets. In contrast, the role of real estate as a contributor to the nation's output and income has remained steady at approximately 11% of gross domestic product.

The Value Of Foreclosed Property, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Anthony Pennington-Cross

This paper examines the expected price appreciation of distressed property and compares it to the prevailing metropolitan area appreciation rate. Whether due to individual property or local area heterogeneity in appreciation, the results show that foreclosed property appreciates less than the area average appreciation rate. The magnitude of the deviation is sensitive to loan characteristics, legal restrictions, housing market conditions and marketing time.

Alternative Methods Of Increasing The Precision Of Weighted Repeat Sales House Prices Indices*, Michelle H. Dreiman, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Anthony Pennington-Cross

Weighted repeat sales house price indices have become one of the primary indicators used to identify housing market conditions and to estimate the amount of equity homeowners have gained through house price appreciation. The primary reason for the acceptance of this methodology is that it derives a location specific (typically, census division, state or metropolitan area) average change in house prices from repeated observations of individual house prices. It is this repeat attribute that allows repeat sales price indices to claim that it is a preferable index which does a better job of holding quality constant. The amount of time …