Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Empirical Studies On Interest Rate Derivatives, Xudong Sun

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Interest rate models are the building blocks of financial market and the interest rate derivatives market is the largest derivatives market in the world. In this dissertation, we shall focus on numerical pricing of interest rate derivatives, estimating model parameters by Kalman filter, and studying various models empirically. We shall propose a front-fixing finite element method to price the American put option under the quadratic term structure framework and compare it with a trinomial tree method and common finite element method. Numerical test results show the superiority of our front-fixing finite element method in the aspects of computing the option …

Energy Production, Distribution, And Pollution Controls: Combining Engineering And Economic Analysis To Enhance Efficiency And Policy Design, David F. Perkis

Open Access Dissertations

Three published articles are presented which focus on enhancing various aspects of the energy supply chain. While each paper adopts a different methodology, all three combine engineering data and/or techniques with economic analysis to improve efficiency or policy design within energy markets. ^ The first paper combines a chemical engineering plant design model with an economic assessment of product enhancements within an ethanol production facility. While a new chemical process is shown to achieve greater ethanol yields, the animal feed by-products are denatured and decrease in value due to the degradation of a key nutritional amino acid. Overall, yield increases …

The Effect Of Income On Health After Hurricane Katrina, Jang Wook Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a large literature that documents a positive correlation between income and a variety of measures of good health. This correlation may reflect causality in both directions and may also reflect omitted "third variables" that are positively related to income and health. In my dissertation, I employ an exogenous negative shock to income due to a natural disaster to estimate the true causal impact of income on health. The shock I will use is Hurricane Katrina, which severely damaged counties in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in August 2005. I use these treatment counties and a variety of alternative sets …

Planetary Improvement: Discourses And Practices Of Green Capitalism In The Cleantech Space, Jesse Adam Goldstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is money to be made in saving the planet. A whole host of actors, such as investors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and policy makers have mobilized around our ecological problems, seeking to innovate new `green' and `clean' technologies that can serve a rapidly changing environment. The presumption that such technologies are both necessary and necessarily profitable anchors visions of a `green' capitalism that can and must be brought into existence.

However, just as free markets have never been all that free, why should we presume that green capitalism would be all that green? Instead of attempting to arbit whether or not …

Analysis Of Influencing Factors Of Coastal Port Cargo Throughput In China From Economic Aspect, Hongyi Zhang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Development Pattern And Competitiveness Evaluation Research On China Inland Dry Port, Min Shi

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Research On China Newbuilding Price Index And Its Derivatives, Yangyang Zhang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Study On Factors Influencing Coal Freight Rate Based On Var Model, Junyi Liu

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Study On Volatility Of China Containerized Freight Index Based On Garch Family Model, Chen Yuan

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Research On Correlation Effects Between Tianjin Port And Its Inland Ports Based On Modified Gravity Model, Yayun Zhao

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Research On Price Fluctuation And Investment Efficiency Of Newbuilding Dry Bulk Carrier, Xinshu Zhou

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Options Pricing And Hedging In A Regime-Switching Volatility Model, Melissa A. Mielkie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Both deterministic and stochastic volatility models have been used to price and hedge options. Observation of real market data suggests that volatility, while stochastic, is well modelled as alternating between two states. Under this two-state regime-switching framework, we derive coupled pricing partial differential equations (PDEs) with the inclusion of a state-dependent market price of volatility risk (MPVR) term.

Since there is no closed-form solution for this pricing problem, we apply and compare two approaches to solving the coupled PDEs, assuming constant Poisson intensities. First we solve the problem using numerical solution techniques, through the application of the Crank-Nicolson numerical scheme. …

Global Economic Impacts Of Shoreline Degradation: A Socioeconomic Analysis, Alexa Brockamp

Global Honors Theses

Shoreline Degradation is an economically important issue, which damages coastal tourism economies, and causes shifts in flows of tourist capital. Shifts in flows of tourist capital have the potential to cause shifts in economic power relationships between nations. Governments and planning agencies should acknowledge the inherent dependence of coastal tourism economies on shoreline health and water quality, and conceptions framing the two issues as dichotomous are destructive – causing urban decisions to be made as if environmental and economic interests are mutually exclusive. It is important that such perceptions shift in order to maintain healthy coastal economies. Additionally, the socio- …

Water In The 21st Century, Grayson Michael Shor

Social Sciences

The aim of this research project is to provide a comprehensive and global analysis of water use in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive grasp of current and impending issues. The included five (5) chapters discuss water distribution, conservation, purification, law, international development, economic debates, ethical consideration, as well as educated estimations of the effects water related issues may cause in the next one-hundred years.

Cost Benefit Analysis Of The Keystone Xl Pipeline, Daniel Carr

Honors Theses

The Keystone XL pipeline is one of the most controversial topics in North America over the last five years. The debate is based on the trade‐off between Canadian oil sands as a usable energy resource and the environmental effects associated with the extraction and refining of the oil. The green house gasses emitted from the extraction and refining of oil sands produces several environmental concerns that make the proposed pipeline controversial. On the other hand, Canadian oil companies see a significant benefit from the ability of Canadian oil reaching international markets. TransCanada, a 79.99 percent owner of the pipeline, conducted …

Aggressive Monetization: Why The Pay For Currency Model Is Dominating The Ios App Store Today, Theodore Kitchen

Honors Theses

The Apple iOS App Store has only been around for 5 years, and yet it has completely changed the way that mobile software is distributed. In this brief period, the online marketplace has seen dramatic shifts in the most successful strategies used by iOS software developers and, more specifically, game developers to gain revenue. As of March 14th 2014 fifteen of the twenty top-grossing iOS apps feature some form of in-app currency that users may purchase with real money, eighteen are mobile video games, and all twenty of these apps are free to download. This paper explores a new business …

Musical Missteps: The Severity Of The Sophomore Slump In The Music Industry, Shane M. Zackery

Scripps Senior Theses

This study looks at alternative models of follow-up album success in order to determine if there is a relationship between the decrease in Metascore ratings (assigned by Metacritic.com) between the first and second album for a musician or band and the 1) music genre or 2) the number of years between the first and second album release. The results support the dominant thought, which suggests that neither belonging to a certain genre of music nor waiting more or less time to drop the second album makes an artist more susceptible to the Sophomore Slump. This finding is important because it …

Spreading The Char: The Importance Of Local Compatibility In The Diffusion Of Biochar Systems To The Smallholder Agriculture Community Context, Laura C. V. Munoz

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis enters the context of smallholder agriculture communities in the developing world. It explores the potentials of biochar and what biochar systems could bring to the smallholder communities while simultaneously bringing environmental benefits. It then acknowledges the challenges of diffusion –the spreading of an unfamiliar innovation. It seeks to answer the question of what will make diffusion of biochar systems more successful in the smallholder context, fixating on the characteristic of compatibility as well as the role local community members can play in making a new biochar system more visible to the rest of the communities.

Lattice Methods For The Valuation Of Options With Regime Switching, Atul Sancheti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, we have developed two numerical methods for evaluating option prices under the regime switching model of stock price processes: the Finite Difference lattice method and the Monte Carlo lattice method.

The Finite Difference lattice method is based on the explicit finite difference scheme for parabolic problems. The Monte Carlo lattice method is based on the simulation of the Markov chain. The advantage of these methods is their flexibility to compute the option prices for any given stock price at any given time. Numerical examples are presented to examine these methods. It has been shown that the proposed …

The Impact Of World Bank’S Conditionality-Ownership Hybrid On Forest Management In Cameroon: Policy Hybridity In International Dependence Development, Asongayi Venard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many developing countries depend on the World Bank for development assistance, which the Bank often provides with policy reform conditions. Resistance to World Bank’s conditionality caused the Bank to posit “ownership” as a country’s real assent to its development policies. The combination of ownership and conditionality invalidates the neocolonial, false-paradigm and dualism theses in explaining the international dependence development model. This study explains this model by investigating how the relationship between conditionality and ownership in the context of this model impacts forest management in Cameroon.

Integrating theoretical and methodological insights mainly from political science, economics, geosciences, and sociology, the study …

Experimental Evidence For Heterogeneous Expectations In A Simple New Keynesian Framework, Atticus David Holm Graven

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This paper is a two-dimensional analysis of agent behavior in a standard New Keynesian (NK) Macroeconomic model. On the dimension of pure mathematics, we analyze the parameters of the NK model and of possible prediction rules. On the other dimension we continue a practice of empirical study of heterogeneous expectations with an experiment. The experiment will ask participants to make predictions of future output and inflation. Their responses will create a data-set upon which analysis will be performed to illuminate and corroborate current theories of economic decision making. The literature has shown that most agents' forecasting rules can be modeled …

The Domestic Natural Gas Shortage In China, Ting Guo

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This thesis analyzes the domestic shortage in the Chinese natural gas market. Both the domestic supply and demand of natural gas are growing fast in China. However, the supply cannot catch up with the demand. Under the present pricing mechanism, the Chinese natural gas market cannot get the equilibrium by itself. Expensive imports are inadequate to fill the increasing gap between the domestic demand and supply. Therefore, the shortage problem occurs. Since the energy gap can result in the arrested development of economics, the shortage problem need to be solved. This thesis gives three suggestions to solve the problem: the …

Residential Electricity Demand In Arkansas, Ileana M. Resendez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzes residential electricity demand in Arkansas. Explanatory variables utilized include real per capita income, residential electricity price, heating degree days, cooling degree days, and residential natural gas price. The results indicate that the income effect dominates the substitution effect given a real personal income increase and a decline in real electricity rates in the state of Arkansas during the period under study.

Environmental Degradation: Key Challenge To Sustainable Economic Development In The Niger Delta, Christian Udogadi Duru

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Bold

Solar Pv Power Generation Forecasting Using Hybrid Intelligent Algorithms And Uncertainty Quantification Based On Bootstrap Confidence Intervals, Donna Alhakeem

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis focuses on short-term photovoltaic forecasting (STPVF) for the power generation of a solar PV system using probabilistic forecasts and deterministic forecasts. Uncertainty estimation, in the form of a probabilistic forecast, is emphasized in this Thesis to quantify the uncertainties of the deterministic forecasts. Two hybrid intelligent models are proposed in two separate chapters to perform the STPVF. In Chapter 4, the framework of the deterministic proposed hybrid intelligent model is presented, which is a combination of wavelet transform (WT) that is a data filtering technique and a soft computing model (SCM) that is generalized regression neural network (GRNN). …

A Stochastic Volatility Model With Leverage Effect And Regime Switching, Hong Jiang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Modeling the volatility of asset returns is a very important study in financial economics. Among the time-varying volatility models, the Stochastic Volatility (SV) models are argued to have advantages over the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models. The purpose of this article is to put forward a generalized and flexible Stochastic Volatility model, the Stochastic Volatility Model with Leverage Effect and Regime Switching (SVLR model), which could capture the complex features of financial time series to the most extent.

A Long- And Short-Run Analysis Of Electricity Demand In Ciudad Juarez, Ericka Cecilia Mendez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Economic growth and appliance saturation are increasing electricity consumption in Mexico. Annual frequency data from 1990 to 2012 are utilized to develop an error correction framework that sheds light on short- and long-run electricity consumption behavior in Ciudad Juarez, a large Mexican metropolitan economy at the border with the United States. The results for this study reveal that electricity is an inelastic normal good in this market. Moreover, natural gas is found to be a weak complement to electricity. With regards to the customer base in this urban economy, population, employment, and income exercise positive and statistically significant impacts on …

A Bayesian Model Of Fertility Decisions In Relationship To Female Labor Force Participation, Rebecca C. Wardrop

Senior Independent Study Theses

Due to the increasing number of women in the labor force, opportunity costs associated with labor force participation are becoming an important factor in fertility decisions. Further, these decisions are assumed to be dynamic as the opportunity costs change as a woman progresses through her career. A Bayesian statistical model , which allows the distribution of the likelihood of having children to be updated as information is gathered, lends itself to the dynamicity of the decision-making process. A generalized model for fertility decisions in terms of labor force participation is created. I also discuss potentials for implementation and furthering the …

Natural Phenomena As Potential Influence On Social And Political Behavior: The Earth’S Magnetic Field, Jackie R. East

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

Researchers use natural phenomena in a number of disciplines to help explain human behavioral outcomes. Research regarding the potential effects of magnetic fields on animal and human behavior indicates that fields could influence outcomes of interest to social scientists. Tests so far have been limited in scope. This work is a preliminary evaluation of whether the earth’s magnetic field influences human behavior it examines the baseline relationship exhibited between geomagnetic readings and a host of social and political outcomes. The emphasis on breadth of topical coverage in these statistical trials, rather than on depth of development for any one model, …

A Look Into The Industry Of Video Games Past, Present, And Yet To Come, Chad Hadzinsky

CMC Senior Theses

Since its inception, the video game industry has been both a new medium for art and innovation as well as a major driving force in the advancements of many technologies. The often overlooked video game industry has turned from a hobby to a multi-billion dollar industry in its short, forty year life. People of all ages and genders across the world are playing video games at a higher clip than ever before. With so many new gamers and emerging technologies, it is an exciting time for the industry. The landscape is constantly changing and successful business models of the past …