Stepwise Green Investment under Policy Uncertainty

We analyse how market price and policy uncertainty, in the form of random provision or retraction of a subsidy, interact to affect the optimal time of investment and the size of a renewable energy (RE) project that can be completed in either a single (lumpy investment) or multiple stages (stepwise investment). The subsidy takes the form of a fixed premium on top of the electricity price, and, therefore, investment is subject to electricity price uncertainty. We show that the risk of a permanent retraction (provision) of a subsidy increases (decreases) the incentive to invest, yet lowers (raises) the amount of installed capacity, and that this result is more pronounced as the size of the subsidy increases. Additionally, we show that increasing the number of policy interventions lowers the expected value of a subsidy and the size of the project. Furthermore, we illustrate that, although an increase in the size of a subsidy lowers the relative value of the stepwise investment strategy, the expected value of a lumpy investment strategy is still lower than that of stepwise investment

Can the information content of share repurchases improve the accuracy of equity premium predictions?

We adjust the dividend–price ratio for share repurchases and investigate whether predictive power can be improved when constructing forecasts of the UK and French equity premia. Regulations in the two largest European stock markets allow us to employ actual repurchase data in our predictive regressions. Hence, we are able to overcome problems associated with markets characterised by less stringent disclosure requirements, where investors might have to rely on proxies for measuring repurchase activity. We find that predictability does not improve either in a statistical or in an economically significant sense once actual share repurchases are considered. Furthermore, we employ a proxy measure of repurchases which can be easily constructed in international markets and demonstrate that its predictive content is not in line with that of the actual repurchase data

Insider trading and future stock returns in firms with concentrated ownership levels

Peer reviewedPostprin

The Australian Bank Levy : do shareholders pay?

Since the global financial crisis, the tax treatment of banks has gained interest in academic and public policy arenas. In this paper, we investigate the stock price reaction of a small sample of commercial banks that were affected by the sudden introduction of a bank levy in Australia. The results of an event study analysis suggest that there is a significant decline in the returns of affected banks following the announcement of the bank levy. This suggests that the banks liable to pay the Australian bank levy lose a considerable percentage (5.2%) of their market capitalisation following its announcement.PostprintPeer reviewe

Wave interaction with defects in pressurised composite structures

There exists a great variety of structural failure modes which must be frequently inspected to ensure continuous structural integrity of composite structures. This work presents a Finite Element (FE) based method for calculating wave interaction with damage within structures of arbitrary layering and geometric complexity. The principal novelty is the investigation of pre-stress effect on wave propagation and scattering in layered structures. A Wave Finite Element (WFE) method, which combines FE analysis with periodic structure theory (PST), is used to predict the wave propagation properties along periodic waveguides of the structural system. This is then coupled to the full FE model of a coupling joint within which structural damage is modelled, in order to quantify wave interaction coeffcients through the joint. Pre-stress impact is quantified by comparison of results under pressurised and non-pressurised scenarios. The results show that including these pressurisation effects in calculations is essential. This is of specific relevance to aircraft structures being intensely pressurised while on air. Numerical case studies are exhibited for different forms of damage type. The exhibited results are validated against available analytical and experimental results

Analysis of Multi-Pin Modular Daughterboard-to-Backplane Connectors at High Bit Rate Signals

A theoretical model for the electrical characterization of multi-pin modular daughterboard-to-backplane connectors at high bit rate signals is developed. The fundamental field equations are transformed into a linear system of equations for the currents and voltages at the edges of the pins of the connector