The use of"asset swaps"by institutional investors in South Africa

Leading financial economists have proposed the use of international asset swaps (Merton 1990, Bodie and Merton 2002) as a way of efficiently achieving international diversification without eroding the level of foreign exchange reserves and weakening local market development. International asset swaps entail limited foreign currency flows (only net gains or losses need to be exchanged). They protect foreign investors from market manipulation and expropriation risk and have much lower transaction costs than outright investments. But asset swaps are constrained by the attractiveness of local markets to foreign investors, and by various regulatory issues covering counterparty risk and collateral considerations, and accounting, valuation, and reporting rules. Institutional investors are well developed in South Africa. Their total assets corresponded in 2001 to 159 percent of GDP, a level that was surpassed by only four high-income countries. But because of the imposition of exchange controls, they lacked international diversification. In July 1995 South Africa was the first developing country that explicitly allowed its pension funds and other institutional investors to make use of"asset swaps."But the South African authorities did not authorize the use of properly specified swap contracts as described by Bodie and Merton, but rather permitted institutional investorsto"obtain foreign investments by way of swap arrangements."As the author argues in this paper, the asset swap mechanism turned out to be cumbersome and inefficient. However, it did allow institutional investors to attain some level of international diversification. Other developing countries should consider authorizing their institutional investors to engage in international asset swaps. But they should authorize the use of properly designed swap contracts, preferably based on baskets of liquid securities, permit only global investment banks to act as counterparties, require the use of global custodians, properly monitor credit risk, maintain adequate collateral, and adopt market-to-market valuation rules. Asset swaps are clearly a second-best option compared to the lifting of exchange controls. However, they may facilitate risk diversification in the presence of such controls. And they may even have a role to play in their absence.Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Settlement of Investment Disputes,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Settlement of Investment Disputes,Insurance Law,Non Bank Financial Institutions

Foreign exchange: macro puzzles, micro tools

This paper reviews recent progress in applying information-theoretic tools to long-standing exchange rate puzzles. I begin by distinguishing the traditional public information approach (e.g., monetary models, including new open-economy models) from the newer dispersed information approach. (The latter focuses on how information is aggregated in the trading process.) I then review empirical results from the dispersed information approach and relate them to two key puzzles, the determination puzzle and the excess volatility puzzle. The dispersed information approach has made progress on both.Foreign exchange rates

Nonlinear Valuation under Collateral, Credit Risk and Funding Costs: A Numerical Case Study Extending Black-Scholes

We develop an arbitrage-free framework for consistent valuation of derivative trades with collateralization, counterparty credit gap risk, and funding costs, following the approach first proposed by Pallavicini and co-authors in 2011. Based on the risk-neutral pricing principle, we derive a general pricing equation where Credit, Debit, Liquidity and Funding Valuation Adjustments (CVA, DVA, LVA and FVA) are introduced by simply modifying the payout cash-flows of the deal. Funding costs and specific close-out procedures at default break the bilateral nature of the deal price and render the valuation problem a non-linear and recursive one. CVA and FVA are in general not really additive adjustments, and the risk for double counting is concrete. We introduce a new adjustment, called a Non-linearity Valuation Adjustment (NVA), to address double-counting. The theoretical risk free rate disappears from our final equations. The framework can be tailored also to CCP trading under initial and variation margins, as explained in detail in Brigo and Pallavicini (2014). In particular, we allow for asymmetric collateral and funding rates, replacement close-out and re-hypothecation. The valuation equation takes the form of a backward stochastic differential equation or semi-linear partial differential equation, and can be cast as a set of iterative equations that can be solved by least-squares Monte Carlo. We propose such a simulation algorithm in a case study involving a generalization of the benchmark model of Black and Scholes for option pricing. Our numerical results confirm that funding risk has a non-trivial impact on the deal price, and that double counting matters too. We conclude the article with an analysis of large scale implications of non-linearity of the pricing equations.Comment: An updated version of this report will appear in the volume: Veronesi, P. (Editor), \Handbook in Fixed-Income Securities, Wiley, 201

Inventory Investment, Global Engagement, and Financial Constraints in the UK: Evidence from Micro Data

We use a panel of 9381 UK firms to study the links between firms’ global engagement status and their financial health. We estimate inventory investment equations augmented with a financial composition variable, and interpret the sensitivity of inventory investment to the latter as a measure of the strength of the financial constraints faced by firms. We find that smaller, younger, and more risky firms; and firms that do not export and are not foreign owned exhibit higher sensitivities. Moreover, global engagement substantially reduces the sensitivities displayed by the former categories of firms: this suggests that it shields firms from financial constraints.Financial constraints, Global engagement, Inventory investment.

Japanese monetary policy, a comparative analysis

An abstract for this article is not availableMonetary policy

Japanese monetary policy, a comparative analysis

An abstract for this article is not availableMonetary policy

Integral assessment of urban conglomeration versus centre-periphery maglev rail systems under market imperfections

New transport infrastructure has a myriad of short and long run effects. The effects on population and economic activity are most difficult to estimate. This paper introduces three different models to estimate the impacts of new infrastructure on labour supply and demand, and carefully explains how the interaction between the models and their outcomes should be handled. A commuter location model is developed to estimate the impact of enabling longer commuting ranges within the same commuting time on housing migration. A spatial general equilibrium model (RAEM) is developed to estimate the impacts of increased spatial competition on firms and spatial production choices. The commuter location model is then used again to estimate the residential choices of the subsequent labour migration. Finally, an interregional commuter expenditure multiplier matrix is constructed to estimate the employment effects of both housing and labour migration. The methodology developed is applied to four Transrapid (magnetic levitation rail) proposals, each following a different route within the Netherlands. The empirical outcomes show remarkable patterns of effects and differences in effects, which were not expected beforehand but be explained quite well. Thus important new insights into the spatial pattern of indirect effects of new infrastructure in general are provided.