Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Unfinished Business: The Need For More Effective Microfinance Exit Monitering, James G. Copestake

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

High rates of exit remain the "Achilles heel" of many micro-finance organizations. After reviewing definitional issues, the paper explores how exit rates adversely affect both their commercial and social objectives. It then reviews case studies of exit monitoring based on routine, questionnaire based and focus group methods, making detailed suggestions as to how data collection, analysis and reporting can be improved.

2002-2003 Operating Budget, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

The Southern University and A & M College Operating Budget for the Fiscal Year 2002-2003.

2002-2003 Revised Operating Budget: Subr Agricultural Extension And Research Programs, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

2002-2003 Revised Operating Budget of the SUBR Agricultural Research and Extension Center Campus.

2002-2003 Operating Budget: Southern University Law Center, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

The 2002-2003 Fiscal Year Operating Budget for the Southern University Law Center Campus.

2002-2003 Operating Budget, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

The Southern University at Shreveport, Operating Budget for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2003.

2002-2003 Operating Budget, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

The Operating Budget for the Fiscal Year 2002-2003, Southern University System Administration & Board of Supervisors.

2001-2002 Operating Budget: Southern University Agricultural Extension And Research Programs, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

2001-2002 Operating Budget of the Southern University Agricultural Extension and Research Programs Campus.

Ua9 Investing In The Spirit, Wku Development & Alumni Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Development office newsletter regarding donors and donations to Western Kentucky University.

2001-2002 Operating Budget: Southern University At New Orleans, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

2001-2002 Operating Budget of the Southern University at New Orleans Campus.

Time-Changed L´Evy Processes And Option Pricing, Pete Carr, Liuren Wu

CRIF Working Paper series

As is well known, the classic Black-Scholes option pricing model assumes that returns follow Brownian motion. It is widely recognized that return processes differ from this benchmark in at least three important ways. First, asset prices jump, leading to non-normal return innovations. Second, return volatilities vary stochastically over time. Third, returns and their volatilities are correlated, often negatively for equities. We propose that time-changed L´evy processes be used to simultaneously address these three facets of the underlying asset return process. We show that our framework encompasses almost all of the models proposed in the option pricing literature. Despite the generality …

What Type Of Process Underlies Options? A Simple Robust Test, Peter Carr, Liuren Wu

CRIF Working Paper series

We develop a simple robust test for the presence of continuous and discontinuous (jump) components in the price of an asset underlying an option. Our test examines the prices of at-the-money and out-of-the-money options as the option maturity approaches zero. We show that these prices converge to zero at speeds which depend upon whether the sample path of the underlying asset price process is purely continuous, purely discontinuous, or a mixture of both. By applying the test to S&P 500 index options data, we conclude that the sample path behavior of this index contains both a continuous component and a …

The Internationalization Of Money And Finance And The Globalization Of Financial Markets, James R. Lothian

CRIF Working Paper series

In this paper I combine long multi-country time series data for interest rates and stock returns with the institutional evidence for much earlier centuries amassed by economic historians to study the question of financial globalization and how it has altered since the late classical era. At their longest, for Dutch and English short-term interest rates, the quantitative data that I use extend back slightly more than three centuries. The institutional history provides information on an additional millennium’s worth of experience. The conclusion that I reach is that the internationalization of money and finance and the globalization of financial markets are …

Roundtable Series On Innovative Approaches To Land Conservation And Smart Growth, New England Environmental Finance Center

Smart Growth

A series of six roundtable discussions was conducted by the New England Environmental Finance Center (NE/EFC) from January through May 2002, one in each New England state. The objectives of the series were to consolidate expertise in financing and coordinating projects that combine conservation and development on the landscape, and to identify key areas of unmet need that could be addressed by the NE/EFC. Each discussion entailed several case study presentations and facilitated discussion about what works, what doesn’t work, and what might work in financing and coordinating efforts that combine conservation and development. Key areas of opportunity that emerged …

Invest For Success - Investing In Agriculture In The South West Irrigation Area, Caroline Hatherly, Janet Mccreddin, Georgia Thomas

Farm Systems and Economics published reports

For the South West Irrigation Area to grow and prosper, it is essential that information be gathered and shared, the region promoted, and water used efficiently. The INTERACT project has been developed to do just that and will be a driver for agricultural development into the future.

" Once SWI just delivered water; now it is helping its irrigation industries to grow." Vision statement, South West Irrigation

Banking On Sbi : Interview With Dipankar Basu, Ashok Thampy, Vivek Moorthy

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

Financial Disclosure And Speculative Bubbles: An International Comparison, Benjamas Jirasakuldech, Thomas S. Zorn

Department of Finance: Faculty Publications

This paper examines if a country’s financial disclosure system affects the likelihood of speculative bubbles. We compare stock returns of eight countries that differ in the quality of their disclosure systems as ranked by Saudagaran and Biddle (1992). We examine the hypothesis that stock prices of firms in countries with a low level of financial disclosure are more prone to speculative bubbles. We employ the duration dependence model developed by McQueen and Thorley (1994) to test for the presence of bubbles. We found that the returns in Japan, a country with a relatively low level of disclosure, shows evidence of …

International Money And Common Currencies In Historical Perspective, Gerald P. Dwyer Jr., James R. Lothian

CRIF Working Paper series

We review the history of international monies and the theory related to their adoption and use. There are four key characteristics of these currencies: high unitary value; relatively low inflation rates for long periods; issuance by major economic and trading powers; and spontaneous, as opposed to planned, adoption internationally. The economic theory of the demand for money provides support for the importance of these characteristics. The value of a unit is arbitrary for a fiat money, but the other characteristics are likely to be important for determining any fiat money that will be the international money in the future. If …

Pitney Bowes Calls For New Metrics, Mark Green, Jeanine Garrity, Andra Gumbus, Bridget Lyons

WCBT Faculty Publications

The importance of measuring strategy and action plans is here to stay. That is why savvy companies are using a scorecard. Pitney Bowes Inc. is one company that believes in the balanced scorecard. At PBI the basis is in place with a newly defined mission statement, individual objectives linked to the mission, and metrics designed to measure progress toward achieving those objectives. The company has been successful on several fronts. In fact, the balanced scorecard approach helped PBI to improve a process in its core business and ultimately saved the company millions.

Investing In Hedge Funds: Risks, Returns And Pitfalls, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh, David Kuo Chuen Lee, Kok Fai Phoon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

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 that they have substantial latitude to invest, it is instructive to examine the performance of hedge funds 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 …

The Global Stock Market: Implications To American Investors, Angela Giordano

Honors Theses

Investors in most industrialized nations have many alternatives beyond the traditional checking and savings accounts. Alternatives such as stocks, which can be purchased off over 180exchanges worldwide, bonds, mutual funds, retirement plans (401k, 501c, 403b), annuities, money market accounts and CDs are often used as investment tools. With all these alternatives, how does one determine which tool or tools to utilize in investing their hard-earned income?

Ua9 Investing In The Spirit, Wku Development & Alumni Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Development office newsletter regarding donors and donations to Western Kentucky University.

Efficiency And Performance Of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Reits): An Empirical Examination, Can Topuz

Doctoral Dissertations

This study has a threefold purpose. Its first objective is to investigate input and output efficiencies in the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry. Its second objective is to understand the impact of size, property share, loan production, debt ratio, property and geographic diversification, control and governance variables, overall risk, capital risk, growth rate, and management type on a number of efficiency measures, including profit, cost, allocative, technical, pure technical and scale efficiency. The third objective is to assess the impact of structural and regulatory changes in the industry on REITs' productivity, technology, and efficiency changes.

I have estimated the …

Financial Performance Of Insurance Companies Following Initial Public Offerings, Kulkanya Napompech

Doctoral Dissertations

The quality of insurance companies is a very significant societal issue. Policyholders pay premiums assuming indemnity of their potential losses. It is essential that an insurer be able to meet its contractual obligations when a loss occurs. An initial public offering provides an infusion of capital and an expansion of resources available to a firm. Thus, the objective of this study is to examine the financial and operating impacts of initial public offerings during 1980–2000 on insurance companies.

Chapter 2 examines changes in operating performance of property/casualty insurance companies following initial public offerings. I find that following initial public offerings, …

An Assessment Of Air Force Development Portfolio Management Practices, Michael A. Greiner, Kevin J. Dooley, Dan L. Shunk, Ross T. Mcnutt

Faculty Publications

Selecting and managing development project portfolios is a critical function within the Air Force’s weapon systems development process. Decision makers must weigh benefits, costs, and mission needs for a variety of proposed new initiatives and current weapon systems programs in order to develop an effective portfolio that provides the best value to the User. This research examines current Air Force development portfolio management practices as perceived by those involved with the decision making process. Research findings indicate several gaps between Air Force practices and those commercial best practices as found in the literature. A general approach for bridging the differences …

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

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

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 …

Institutional Investors And Adrs: Three Essays, Deqing Li

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The three essays which constitute this research study the effects of institutional investors in the ADRs' market.

Essay one studies the herding and feedback trading by institutional investors in the ADRs market. The empirical results find that there is a strong positive relation between changes in the ADRs institutional ownership and returns measured over the same period—the herding year (t = month 0 to 11). The ADR portfolios experiencing the largest increase in institutional ownership outperform those experiencing the largest decrease by 15.33 percent per year over the herding year. In addition, return continuation exists for the two years following …

The Finite Moment Log Stable Process And Option Pricing, Peter Carr, Liuren Wu

CRIF Working Paper series

We document a surprising pattern in market prices of S&P 500 index options. When implied volatilities are graphed against a standard measure of moneyness, the implied volatility smirk does not flatten out as maturity increases up to the observable horizon of two years. This behavior contrasts sharply with the implications of many pricing models and with the asymptotic behavior implied by the central limit theorem (CLT). We develop a parsimonious model which deliberately violates the CLT assumptions and thus captures the observed behavior of the volatility smirk over the maturity horizon. Calibration exercises demonstrate its superior performance against several widely …

Time-Varying Arrival Rates Of Informed And Uninformed Trades, David Easley, Robert F. Engle, Maureen O’Hara, Liuren Wu

CRIF Working Paper series

In this paper we extend the model of Easley and O’Hara (1992) to allow the arrival rates of informed and uninformed trades to be time-varying and forecastable. We specify a generalized autoregressive bivariate process for the arrival rates of informed and uninformed trades and estimate the model on 16 actively traded stocks on the New York Stock Exchange over 15 years of transaction data. Our results show that uninformed trades are highly persistent. Uninformed order arrivals clump together, with high uninformed volume days likely to follow high uninformed volume days, and conversely. This behavior is consistent with the passive characterization …

A Dynamic Equilibrium Model Of Real Exchange Rates With General Transaction Costs, Gautam Goswami, Milind Shrikhande, Liuren Wu

CRIF Working Paper series

We study the behavior of real exchange rates in a two-country dynamic equilibrium model. In this model, consumers can only consume domestic goods but can invest costlessly in capital stocks of both countries. Nevertheless, transporting goods between the two countries is costly and, hence, the rebalancing of the capital stock can only happen finitely often. We propose a realistic cost structure for goods transportation, wherein the total cost increases with the amount of shipment but the unit cost decreases with it due to economies of scale. Given such a cost structure, the optimal decisions on when and how much to …

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

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

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 …