EXPLORING HEDGES IN EFL LEARNERS’ SOME SELECTED UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Sri Maryati (14121310362): “EXPLORING HEDGES IN EFL LERANERS’ SOME SELECTED UNDERGRADUATE THESIS” Undergraduate Thesis 2016 Hedges devices have become a crucial issue in language learning. The study of hedges brings discussion of type of hedges and relates to interpersonal meaning used in EFL learners’ undergraduate thesis. One aspect that is highlighted in the hedges is how to deliver the argument in order to be accepted by the reader within the scope of the making of undergraduate thesis. The term of the hedges plays different types and interaction management in making undergraduate thesis. There are some types of hedges and interaction management that are used by EFL learners. This research is intended to: 1) identify what types of hedges are commonly used by the students, 2) describe hedges choices relate to interpersonal meaning. This research is based on the fact that in writing undergraduate thesis, writers are still confused about how to convey an argument to be understood and there is no misunderstanding by the reader. This research applied qualitative research method in analyzing the data since the researcher attempts to explore deeply types of hedges that are used and find the type of interaction on the writing of undergraduate thesis of EFL learners. The data are taken from a stratified purposive sampling (high, medium, low score). They are three data of undergraduate students in 2015. In this research the main instrument is the researcher herself. The researcher uses the theory of Hyland’s taxonomy as the foundations in analyzing the data of this research. After conducting research, the researcher obtains the results of this research. The research findings of first research question shows that there are two types of hedges that often found. They are modal verbs (43,04%) and lexical verbs (32,91%) primarily on epistemic evidental in lexical hedges. The types found are referred to the level of certainty and uncertainty in presenting arguments. Meanwhile, in the non-lexical hedges the harmonic combination (54,34%) occupies the high position in the use of three data. It means that the authors avoid personal responsibility for validity of the proposition. The research findings of second research question shows that hedges related to interpersonal meaning that used personal attribution. The average writers of the three data use metatext (52%) to guide the reader rather than the use of writer-reader interaction (48%) which focuses on the writer-reader relationship. In conclusion, hedges are important aspects in writing learning that help students to be professional writers. Keywords: Hedges, EFL Leraner, Metadiscourse, Interpersonal Metadiscours

Single and cross-generation natural hedging of longevity and financial risk

The paper provides natural hedging strategies among death benefits and annuities written on a single and on different generations. It obtains closed-form Delta and Gamma hedges, in the presence of both longevity and interest rate risk. We present an application to UK data on survivorship and bond dynamics. We first compare longevity and financial risk exposures: Deltas and Gammas for longevity risk are greater in absolute value than the corresponding sensitivities for interest rate risk. We then calculate the optimal hedges, both within and across generations. Our results apply to both asset and asset-liability management

The term structure of currency hedge ratios

Many firms face product price risk in foreign currency, uncertain costs in home currency and exchange rate risk. If prices and exchange rates in different countries interact, natural hedges of foreign exchange risk might result. If the effectiveness of such hedges depends on the hedge horizon, they might affect a firm's usage of foreign exchange derivatives and lead to a term structure of optimal hedge ratios. We analyze this issue by deriving the variance minimizing hedge position in currency forward contracts of an exporting firm that is exposed to different risks. In an empirical study, we quantify the term structure of hedge ratios for a ' typical ' German firm that is exporting either to the United States, the United Kingdom or Japan. Based on cointegrated vector autoregressive models of prices, interest rates and exchange rates, we show that the hedge ratio decreases substantially with the hedge horizon, reaching values of one half or less for a ten-years horizon. Our findings can (partly) explain the severe underhedging of long-term exchange rate exposures that is frequently observed and have important implications for the design of risk management strategies. --corporate risk management,foreign exchange risk,hedging,cointegrated VAR model

A Utility Based Approach to Energy Hedging

A key issue in the estimation of energy hedges is the hedgers’ attitude towards risk which is encapsulated in the form of the hedgers’ utility function. However, the literature typically uses only one form of utility function such as the quadratic when estimating hedges. This paper addresses this issue by estimating and applying energy market based risk aversion to commonly applied utility functions including log, exponential and quadratic, and we incorporate these in our hedging frameworks. We find significant differences in the optimal hedge strategies based on the utility function chosen.Energy; Hedging; Risk Management; Risk Aversion; Forecasting

Factors influencing biodiversity within organic and conventional systems of arable farming (OF0165)

This is the final report of Defra project OF0165. The main attached report starts with a more detailed and comprehensive Executive Summary, from which these paragraphs have been extracted. Previous studies suggest widespread positive responses of biodiversity to organic farming. Many of these studies, however, have been small-scale. The purpose of this project was to test the generality of responses to arable organic farming (i.e. cereal-growing farms) in England through a multi-taxa study of a large number of farms. Abundance and diversity of higher plants, spiders, carabid beetles, wintering birds and bats were measured on matched pairs of organic and conventionally managed farms. Extent and potential quality of non-crop habitat were also measured. Two key issues addressed by the project were (a) whether biodiversity differences between organic and conventional systems arise from amount and management of non-crop habitat or from differences in crop management systems and (b) the importance of duration under organic management. Plants and invertebrates were examined in 89 pairs of cereal fields (target fields). Birds and bats were studied at a larger spatial scale, extending over several fields on each study farm. Virtually all suitable organic farms in England were studied. The farm pairing procedure was purely geographical and not based on any attributes of either system. Target fields were stratified by cereal type (spring or winter sown) and by age since conversion. Habitat and management comparisons were carried out at landscape, farm and field scales using data collected in the field and existing landscape datasets (Land Cover Map 2000 and CS2000 field survey data). Within England, organic farms tended to be located to the south of the wheat-growing region, in areas with more grassland than conventional farms. It is difficult to disassociate many landscape level variables from farming system. Organic arable farms were more often mixed farms than their conventional counterparts, leading to smaller field sizes, livestock-proof hedges, diverse rotations and greater extents of grassland. Hedges on organic farms occurred at higher density (length per unit area) and were taller, wider and less gappy than those on conventional farms. All these factors are likely to enhance many components of biodiversity. By contrast, conventional farms were more likely to contain stubble and naturally regenerated set-aside which can be beneficial to wildlife. This study has confirmed that organic systems do generally support higher levels of biodiversity but that the differences are often quite small. Some, but not all, differences in biodiversity between systems appear to be a consequence of differences in habitat quantity. Plants and invertebrates appear to be responding mainly to crop management practices that are intrinsic to the system. Birds and bats benefit from increased quantities of various non-crop habitats and higher diversity of habitats on organic but this does not account for all differences between systems in these groups. Few relationships with duration of organic management were detected. This may be partly because it was not possible to account for pre-conversion management. We highlight the potential value to biodiversity on conventional farms of non-crop habitat management (especially hedges), mixed farming and the incorporation of ‘organic’ field margins. High priority areas for future related research include the potential biodiversity benefits of organic livestock farming, long-term controlled studies on responses to conversion, and the effect of extent of organic management at larger scales

Time Varying Risk Aversion: An Application to Energy Hedging

Risk aversion is a key element of utility maximizing hedge strategies; however, it has typically been assigned an arbitrary value in the literature. This paper instead applies a GARCH-in-Mean (GARCH-M) model to estimate a time-varying measure of risk aversion that is based on the observed risk preferences of energy hedging market participants. The resulting estimates are applied to derive explicit risk aversion based optimal hedge strategies for both short and long hedgers. Out-of-sample results are also presented based on a unique approach that allows us to forecast risk aversion, thereby estimating hedge strategies that address the potential future needs of energy hedgers. We find that the risk aversion based hedges differ significantly from simpler OLS hedges. When implemented in-sample, risk aversion hedges for short hedgers outperform the OLS hedge ratio in a utility based comparison.Energy, Hedging, Risk Management, Risk Aversion, Forecasting

Managerial Responses to Incentives: Control of Firm Risk, Derivative Pricing Implications, and Outside Wealth Management

We model a firm’s value process controlled by a manager maximizing expected utility from restricted shares and employee stock options. The manager also dynamically controls allocation of his outside wealth. We explore interactions between those controls as he partially hedges his exposure to firm risk. Conditioning on his optimal behavior, control of firm risk increases the expected time to exercise for his employee stock options. It also reduces the percentage gap between his certainty equivalent and the firm’s fair value for his compensation, but that gap remains substantial. Managerial control also causes traded options to exhibit an implied volatility smile.Risk; Wealth Management; Derivative

Single and cross-generation natural hedging of longevity and financial risk

The paper provides natural hedging strategies among death benefits and annuities written on a single and on different generations. It obtains closed-form Delta and Gamma hedges, in the presence of both longevity and interest rate risk. We present an application to UK data on survivorship and bond dynamics. We first compare longevity and financial risk exposures: Deltas and Gammas for longevity risk are greater in absolute value than the corresponding sensitivities for interest rate risk. We then calculate the optimal hedges, both within and across generations. Our results apply to both asset and asset-liability management

Risk Management for Equity Portfolios of Japanese Banks

This paper verifies the impact of equity portfolio on bank management, underscoring the importance of managing the risks involved and suggesting "management of sensitivity to equity price risk" as a risk management technique that takes into account the correlation between equity price risk and credit risk. To do this, the paper focuses on the high correlation between "expected default probability estimated by the option-approach (Merton method)" using equity price information and " spread over Libor" observed in the bond market. This is used to calculate sensitivity (delta and vega) to changes in the equity price and its volatility. According to calculations for a sample portfolio, these two sensitivities have a degree of utility in measuring the distribution of risk exposure and in using equity price index futures and options as hedges. In the hedging of vega risk (which tends to reflect credit risk) in particular, long put positions in equity price index options are shown to be potentially effective.

Impact of organic agriculture on diversity and abundance of farmland birds in an arable landscape with hedges

A comparative study of breeding bird communities of organically and conventionally cultivated arable fields was carried out in northern Germany in 2005. The research was conducted on 40 pairs of fields (conventional/organic), which were selected with regard to similar field sizes and comparable boundary structures (particularly presence of hedges). Bird communities were solely dominated by the skylark Alauda arvensis L., which was the only frequent species on the tested pairs of fields. Diversity of farmland birds (number of species, Shannon-Index) was not affected by type of management. However, the abundance of skylarks (territories/10 ha) was significantly higher in organic than in conventional fields. As the study will be continued, the one-year findings will be verified with respect to changes of crops in rotations