Real Estate Securities and a Filter-based, Short-term Trading Strategy

Anecdotal evidence provides overwhelming support to the belief that sophisticated real estate investors profit by timing long-run real estate cycles. This article examines the investment performance benefits that sophisticated investors may derive from short-run cycles in real estate, specifically, through the publicly traded real estate markets. Using a simple strategy that filters out noise in real estate investment trust (REIT) price reversals, this study shows that a contrarian strategy is many times more profitable than the associated execution costs. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the REIT market has been sufficiently liquid to execute this trading strategy. This last point is directly related to the filter strategy since only REITs with large price movements satisfy the hypothetical investor’s selection criteria.

On the Quality of FFO Forecasts

This paper is the first attempt to provide an objective assessment of the quality of real estate funds from operations (FFO) forecasts. The work, which looks past the more primitive question concerning the appropriate measure for real estate earnings, quantifies and tests the quality of real estate investment trust (REIT) FFO forecasts relative to the net income forecasts of several comparison groups. The results show the high quality of REIT forecasts are remarkably robust and are not driven by the level of analyst attention. Investors in a post-Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley era may find the implications for high quality forecasts of real estate earning to be an appealing investment concept.

Large round bales : safety (1998)

The key to safe and efficient systems for handling large round bales is an operator who knows the hazards involved and who follows safety practices that can prevent accidents. Operators must be constantly alert for situations that may cause injuries to themselves or others. Besides pain and suffering, accidents contribute to higher costs in terms of unnecessary downtime or costly machine repairs. Alertness and safety consciousness can result in more efficient and profitable baling and handling

An Updated Look at the Size of the U.S. Real Estate Market Portfolio

Using 1989 data on aggregate real estate values for a sample of counties, this paper develops estimates of the total value of real estate by property type in the United States. The values for commercial and residential property are also reported by region and for the forty-four largest MSAs. The estimated total value of commercial real estate is compared with the value of other investment asset classes, and implications are drawn for investment portfolios.

Food- and drug-reinforced responding: Effects of DITA and d -amphetamine

Intravenous pretreatment with DITA (0.1–1.0 mg/kg) decreased the rate of food-reinforced lever pressing in rhesus monkeys. Response rate decreases were dose-dependent but showed the development of tolerance. Self-administration of DITA was initiated and maintained in each of three monkeys when 30 lever presses were required to produce each injection. Maximal response rate during periods of drug availability was maintained by 0.03 mg/kg/injection while higher and lower doses (0.01 and 0.10 mg/kg/injection) maintained lower response rates. Response rate in periods of food availability immediately preceding drug periods was relatively constant across sessions; response rate in periods of food availability immediately following drug periods, however, decreased with increasing amounts of drug self-administered. Replication of initial self-administration doses produced results comparable to original determinations in contrast to the tolerance observed with DITA effects upon food-reinforced responding. DITA was about 3 times less potent than d -amphetamine in maintaining response rates in drug periods and in decreasing the rate of subsequent food-reinforced responding.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46391/1/213_2004_Article_BF00437608.pd

Aggregation and Representation in the European Parliament Party Groups

While members of the European Parliament are elected in national constituencies, their votes are determined by the aggregation of MEPs in multinational party groups. The uncoordinated aggregation of national party programmes in multinational EP party groups challenges theories of representation based on national parties and parliaments. This article provides a theoretical means of understanding representation by linking the aggregation of dozens of national party programmes in different EP party groups to the aggregation of groups to produce the parliamentary majority needed to enact policies. Drawing on an original data source of national party programmes, the EU Profiler, the article shows that the EP majorities created by aggregating MEP votes in party groups are best explained by cartel theories. These give priority to strengthening the EP’s collective capacity to enact policies rather than voting in accord with the programmes they were nationally elected to represent

Modelling the dynamics of support for a right-wing populist party: the case of UKIP

ABSTRACT: Similar to a number of other right-wing populist parties in Europe, Great Britain's United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has experienced increased public support in recent years. Using aggregate data from monthly national surveys conducted between April 2004 and April 2014, time series analyses demonstrate that the dynamics of UKIP support were influenced by a combination of spatial and valence issues. A spatial issue, Euroscepticism, was fundamental, with UKIP support moving in dynamic equilibrium with changing public attitudes towards EU membership. In addition, widespread anti-immigration sentiment and dissatisfaction with the performance of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government combined with the “oxygen of publicity” to propel UKIP's surge. The political context after the 2010 general election helped as well by enabling UKIP to benefit from valence considerations. Many voters continued to doubt the competence of the major opposition party, Labour, while the Liberal Democrats were part of the government and, hence, unavailable as a protest vehicle. Since many of the forces driving UKIP support are beyond its control, the party's prospects are highly uncertain

The behaviour of political parties and MPs in the parliaments of the Weimar Republic

Copyright @ 2012 The Authors. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Analysing the roll-call votes of the MPs of the Weimar Republic we find: (1) that party competition in the Weimar parliaments can be structured along two dimensions: an economic left–right and a pro-/anti-democratic. Remarkably, this is stable throughout the entire lifespan of the Republic and not just in the later years and despite the varying content of votes across the lifespan of the Republic, and (2) that nearly all parties were troubled by intra-party divisions, though, in particular, the national socialists and communists became homogeneous in the final years of the Republic.Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstan

Science and Ideology in Economic, Political, and Social Thought

This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using natural science methods in economics was met with little understanding and often considerable hostility. I found economics to be driven less by common sense and empirical evidence, then by various ideologies that exhibited either a political or a methodological bias, or both. This brings me to the second source: Several books have appeared recently that describe in historical terms the ideological forces that have shaped either the direct areas in which I worked, or a broader background. These books taught me that the ideological forces in the social sciences are even stronger than I imagined on the basis of my own experiences. The scientific method is the antipode to ideology. I feel that the scientific work that I have done on specific, long standing and fundamental problems in economics and political science have given me additional insights into the destructive role of ideology beyond the history of thought orientation of the works I will be discussing

New evidence on housing wealth and consumption channels

This paper provides new evidence on the effect of housing wealth on consumption by focusing on the impact of home-equity extraction. We develop a household consumption decision model to illustrate the differential effect of home-equity extraction, relative to net home equity, on consumption. The home-equity extraction channel is also shown to vary with household-level borrowing constraints. Based on U.S. household survey data and an instrumental-variables approach, our empirical results validate model predictions. We find that the marginal propensity to consume is two times higher for the home-equity extraction channel relative to the conventional housing wealth effect. The consumption effect of home-equity extraction is more than 2.5 times greater for liquidity-constrained households than for unconstrained households. These results are even more pronounced in the case of durable goods consumption for constrained borrowers