A Comparison of Cointegration & Tracking Error Models for Mutual Funds & Hedge Funds

We present a detailed study of portfolio optimisation based on cointegration, a statistical tool that here exploits a long-run equilibrium relationship between stock prices and an index price. We compare the theoretical and empirical properties of cointegration optimal equity portfolios with those of portfolios optimised on the tracking error variance. From an eleven year out of sample performance analysis we find that for simple index tracking the additional feature of cointegration between the tracking portfolio and the index has no clear advantages or disadvantages relative to the tracking error variance (TEV) minimization model. However ensuring a cointegration relationship does pay off when the tracking task becomes more difficult. Cointegration optimal portfolios clearly dominate the TEV equivalents for all of the statistical arbitrage strategies based on enhanced indexation, in all market circumstancescointegration, tracking error, index tracking, statistical arbitrage

Vertical integration and firm boundaries : the evidence

Since Ronald H. Coase's (1937) seminal paper, a rich set of theories has been developed that deal with firm boundaries in vertical or input–output structures. In the last twenty-five years, empirical evidence that can shed light on those theories also has been accumulating. We review the findings of empirical studies that have addressed two main interrelated questions: First, what types of transactions are best brought within the firm and, second, what are the consequences of vertical integration decisions for economic outcomes such as prices, quantities, investment, and profits. Throughout, we highlight areas of potential cross-fertilization and promising areas for future work

Country Portfolios with Imperfect Corporate Governance

Equity home bias is one of the most enduring puzzles in international finance. In this paper, I start out by documenting a novel stylized fact about home bias: countries with weaker domestic institutions hold fewer foreign assets. I then explore a macroeconomic mechanism by which the presence of agency problems in firms may explain this pattern. To do so, I develop a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of international portfolio choice with corporate governance frictions and two distinct agents - outside investors (outsiders) and large controlling shareholders (insiders). Insiders can extract private benefits of control from a firm at a cost which is lower when institutions are weaker. I show that the interaction between the insider's private benefits and investment decisions leads asset and labor income for outsiders to be more negatively correlated in countries with weaker institutions. Thus, outsiders in these countries bias their portfolios more towards home assets to hedge their labor income risk. Calibrating the model to match existing estimates of private benefits of control, I am also able to replicate the cross-country dispersion in insider ownership and investment volatility seen in the data.home bias, institutional quality, corporate governance

Exchange rate risks and asset prices in a small open economy

The paper proposes a multi-factor international asset pricing model in which the exchange rate is allowed to be co-determined by a risk factor imperfectly correlated to other priced risks in the economy. The significance of this factor can be established as long as one is able to observe a proxy for the foreign cash order flow. Then, the asset pricing model is decomposed into the standard ICCAPM no-arbitrage setup characterized by a pricing kernel, in which, however, the “autarky” exchange rate is unobserved, and an additional equation that links this autarchic currency price with the FX order flow. The model is put in the state space form. The unobserved variables span the macroeconomic risk factors with an impact on the asset markets and determine the dynamics of the pricing kernel, the autarchic exchange rate and the FX order flow. A comparison of models allowing for an independent OF risk factor with a restricted one, where the forex order flow plays no role, should disclose the existence of a “nonfundamental” source of a systematic divergence of the observed and the autarchic (i.e. fundamental) FX returns. The model is calibrated and tested on the Czech koruna/euro exchange rate in a setting with seven Czech and euro area asset returns. JEL Classification: F31, F41, G12, G15exchange rate, latent risk, order flow, pricing kernel, state space

Vertical Integration and Firm Boundaries : The Evidence

Understanding what determines firm boundaries and the choice between interacting in a firm or a market is not only the fundamental concern of the theory of the firm, but it is also one of the most important issues in economics. Data on value added, for example, reveal that in the US, transactions that occur in firms are roughly equal in value to those that occur in markets. The economics profession, however, has devoted much more attention to the workings of markets than to the study of firms, and even less attention to the interface between the two. Nevertheless, since Coase’s (1937) seminal paper on the subject, a rich set of theories has been developed that deal with firm boundaries in vertical or input/output structures. Furthermore, in the last 25 years, empirical evidence that can shed light on those theories has been accumulating.Vertical integration ; firm boundaries ; vertical mergers ; firms versus markets

Hidden insurance in a moral hazard economy

We consider an economy where individuals privately choose effort and trade competitively priced securities that pay off with effort-determined probability. We show that if insurance against a negative shock is sufficiently incomplete, then standard functional form restrictions ensure that individual objective functions are optimized by an effort and insurance combination that is unique and satisfies first- and second-order conditions. Modeling insurance incompleteness in terms of costly production of private insurance services, we characterize the constrained inefficiency arising in general equilibrium from competitive pricing of nonexclusive financial contracts

"Money and Equilibrium: Two Alternative Nodes Of Coordination Of Economic Activities"

Economic theory has undergone a very deep transformation during the last forty years. Its method and its tools of analysis have evolved dramatically. The standards by which theoretical statements are now appreciated are far more demanding, especially from a formal point of view, than was the case before World War II. Precision and logical validity in raising questions and problems have increased as well. The set of hypotheses necessary to deal with the usual issues of political economy has been made more explicit, allowing everyone to have a more clearer interpretation of what has been done in the different fields. The content and the relevance of the concept of equilibrium have been strongly affected by these transformations. This paper, obviously, does not attempt to give an account of all these changes. It will focus on just one consequence of this evolution: the relevance of the concept of equilibrium in dealing with the traditional question of the working of the market, the central institution in our economies. To put the matter very briefly, the question addressed here concerns the place of equilibrium in economic theory: does mainstream economics allow for another theoretical reference? For two centuries at least, equilibrium was referred to as a particular situation towards which the market mechanism was supposed to drive the economy. An important issue was to prove this conjecture. Whereas mainstream economists (Smith, Ricardo, Stuart Mill, Marshall and Walras) endeavored to prove the stability of the market, critical authors tried to show that certain fundamental flaws of the market mechanism make instability and crisis the rule in a capitalist economy. Among the factors said to be responsible for this result, the monetary character of the economy seems the most important (as was emphasized by Boisguilbert, Sismondi and Marx in the past and by Keynes in our time).

Currency Substitution in the Transition Economy : A Case of the Czech Republic 1993-2001

Currency substitution appears to be an important issue affecting the design of monetary policy, especially in transition economies. Therefore, this paper strives to analyze the particular relevance of a currency substitution phenomenon for the Czech Republic is case. We initially discuss various approaches and definitions of currency substitution that found in the literature. Subsequently, we discuss the role of currency substitution in small open economies in transition with some illustrations relating to the Czech Republic - we distinguish and analyse a locally and globally substituting currency from a substituted one and consequences of euroization. The empirical part of this paper presents estimations of modified Branson and Henderson portfolio model for the Czech Republic’s case. This provides a multi-perspective approach to currency substitution in a broad sense. Further, we attempt to intensify the robustness of our estimation, applying several cointegration techniques. These are namely the Johansen procedure, the ARDL, the DOLS and the ADL. Finally, we discuss potential implications of currency and assets substitution according to our estimates present in the Czech economy.Currency substitution ; demand for money ; transition ; Czech Republic ; cointegration