Price-caps and Efficient Pricing for the Electricity Italian Market

Deregulation of the electricity generating industry, under way in the United States as well as in Europe, would yield economies to operate in a more competitive environment causing improvement of efficiency and the possibility to develop related financial markets to manage price uncertainty. Electricity spot prices tend to be remarkably volatile as consequence of extreme weather conditions, therefore there seems to be sufficient price uncertainty to warrant the development of derivative markets, however it is important to verify whether the underlying spot market is sufficiently competitive and well functioning to stimulate the development of related financial markets. Analyzing the features and price volatility of European markets which undertook the same process, as well as Norwey, Germany and Spain, we formulate a simple model to control the well functioning of energy spot markets in a deregulated context. The model is tested using Norwegian, Deutsch and Spanish spot prices over the last two years in order to assess the correct price formation in competitive operating markets.Electricity market, Price limits, Market Power

CDS Volatility: the Key Signal of Credit Quality

This paper investigates the role of CDS volatility in providing information concerning the credit quality of a company. In Castellano and D'Ecclesia (2011) a first analysis of how CDS quotes respond to rating announcements is provided and it showed that market participants do not rely much on Rating Agencies, especially during periods characterized by very high volatility, i.e. during a financial crisis. Here, a more accurate analysis of the CDS's ability to provide timely information on the creditworthiness of reference entities is performed, estimating the volatility of CDS quotes by using Exponential GARCH(1,1) models. The event study methodology is applied to a sample of CDS quotes for US and European markets, over the period 2004-2009. Results provide an accurate understanding of market behavior in the presence of news released by Rating Agencies. Overall, market participants seem to provide timely reactions around the event date and we show that the key element of signaling is represented by the changing volatility in CDS quotes, before and after the rating event

Long Swings in Exchange Rates: a Stochastic Control Approach

A regime-switching model to describe the exchange rate dynamics is derived as solution to a stochastic control problem. We assume exchange rates evolve according to some macroeconomic variables whose dynamics could be described by a Brownian motion with a state-dependent drift. The local Monetary Authority is assumed to intervene influencing the evolution of the fundamental, causing the exchange rate to switch from a depreciating to an appreciating regime (and vice versa). We assume the behaviour of the Monetary Authority can be modeled using an optimal control framework where the state variable is represented by the fundamental. The solution of the model allows the determination of an endogenous tolerance band within which the exchange rate freely fluctuates

Long Swings in Exchange Rates: a Stochastic Control Approach

A regime-switching model to describe the exchange rate dynamics is derived as solution to a stochastic control problem. We assume exchange rates evolve according to some macroeconomic variables whose dynamics could be described by a Brownian motion with a state-dependent drift. The local Monetary Authority is assumed to intervene influencing the evolution of the fundamental, causing the exchange rate to switch from a depreciating to an appreciating regime (and vice versa). We assume the behaviour of the Monetary Authority can be modeled using an optimal control framework where the state variable is represented by the fundamental. The solution of the model allows the determination of an endogenous tolerance band within which the exchange rate freely fluctuates

Comovements and Correlations in International Stock Markets

The interrelationship between international stock markets is a key issue in international portfolio management and risk measurement. The dynamics of security returns and their risk characteristics have a crucial role in the financial market theory. Recent empirical studies have tested market efficiency measuring the degree of integration of international financial markets. These studies have shown that international markets react quickly to news but they are volatile and difficult to predict, with a changing correlation structure of security returns among countries. In this paper the nature of the relationship between the major international stock markets in Canada, Japan, UK and the US, is analysed using the common trends and common cycles approach. The presence of co-movements is investigated to try to detect a long-term stationary component, the common trend, and a short-term stationary cyclical component, among international stock markets. The implications for international portfolio management are also discussed

A disutility-based drift control for exchange rates

In this paper we propose an exchange rate model as solution of a disutility based drift control problem. Given the exchange rate is a function of the fundamental, we assume Government Authorities control the fundamental dynamics aimed at minimizing the discounted expected disutility caused by the distance between the fundamental and some specific target. The theoretical model is solved using the dynamic programming approach and introducing the concept of viscosity solution. We contribute to research on exchange rate control policies by deriving the optimal interventions aimed at stabilizing the exchange rate and preserving macroeconomic stability. We also show that, under particular conditions, it is possible to derive the optimal width of the currency band. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Optimization on 06 January 2012, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02331934.2011.64101

Price-caps and Efficient Pricing for the Electricity Italian Market

Deregulation of the electricity generating industry, under way in the United States as well as in Europe, would yield economies to operate in a more competitive environment causing improvement of efficiency and the possibility to develop related financial markets to manage price uncertainty. Electricity spot prices tend to be remarkably volatile as consequence of extreme weather conditions, therefore there seems to be sufficient price uncertainty to warrant the development of derivative markets, however it is important to verify whether the underlying spot market is sufficiently competitive and well functioning to stimulate the development of related financial markets. Analyzing the features and price volatility of European markets which undertook the same process, as well as Norwey, Germany and Spain, we formulate a simple model to control the well functioning of energy spot markets in a deregulated context. The model is tested using Norwegian, Deutsch and Spanish spot prices over the last two years in order to assess the correct price formation in competitive operating markets

Multifactor consumption based asset pricing models using the US stock market as a reference: Evidence from a panel of developed economies

This article was submitted and presented at the European Economics and Finance Society Conference, 2012, at Koç University, Istanbul, and the final version was published in a Special Section of Economic Modelling. The special section editor was John Hunter from Brunel University London.In this paper we extend the time series analysis to the panel framework to test the C-CAPM driven by wealth references for developed countries. Speci cally, we focus on a linearised form of the Consumption-based CAPM in a pooled cross section panel model with two-way error com- ponents. The empirical findings of this two-factor model with various specifications all indicate that there is significant unobserved heterogeneity captured by cross-country fixed e¤ects when consumption growth is treated as a common factor, of which the average risk aversion coefficient is 4.285. However, the cross-sectional impact of home consumption growth varies dramatically over the countries, where unobserved heterogeneity of risk aversion can also be addressed by random effects