Is There Hedge Fund Contagion?

We examine whether hedge funds experience contagion. First, we consider whether extreme movements in equity, fixed income, and currency markets are contagious to hedge funds. Second, we investigate whether extreme adverse returns in one hedge fund style are contagious to other hedge fund styles. To conduct this examination, we estimate binomial and multinomial logit models of contagion using daily returns on hedge fund style indices as well as monthly returns on indices with a longer history. Our main finding is that there is no evidence of contagion from equity, fixed income, and foreign exchange markets to hedge funds, except for weak evidence of contagion for one single daily hedge fund style index. By contrast, we find strong evidence of contagion across hedge fund styles, so that hedge fund styles tend to have poor coincident returns.

El problema del retraso pedagógico en la estandarización de pruebas

El retraso pedagógico no tiene nada que ver con las normas de edad. Es un axioma básico de la psicometría el que las normas no han de calcularse en base de unidades pedagógicas (grados o cursos escolares), sino en base a grupos de misma edad cronológic

Notas sobre la ignorancia

¿Qué es esa ignorancia de la que se jacta Sócrates y cuyo conocimiento, según Nicolás de Cusa, es la cosa más deseable?. Aparentemente la pregunta es ociosa. Ni es necesario consultar un diccionario; cualquier persona de sentido común nos contestaría: la ignorancia es la falta de saber. Definición clara, correcta, impecable. Y sin embargo Veamos un caso concreto que nos ayudará a plantear mejor el problema: yo ignoro todo del idioma chino; ni conozco una sola palabra china ni sé cómo se pronuncian correctamente los nombres de poetas, emperadores o generales que se transcriben tan imperfectamente en nuestro alfabeto. En cuanto al idioma chino atañe, no me queda sino confesar mi absoluta ignorancia

El problema del retraso pedagógico en la estandarización de pruebas

El retraso pedagógico no tiene nada que ver con las normas de edad. Es un axioma básico de la psicometría el que las normas no han de calcularse en base de unidades pedagógicas (grados o cursos escolares), sino en base a grupos de misma edad cronológica. No importa, pues, en qué grado o curso esté un sujeto, siempre se lo coloca, para la elaboración estadística de la prueba, en un mismo grupo con sus contemporáneos

El concepto de escala en el pensamiento de Leopold Kohr: una contribución del pasado para las discusiones presentes en torno al desarrollo sostenible

The appropriate scale is a central feature of any process. It is a central aspect too of the development process in its multilayered aspects, affecting the socioeconomic development process on all its levels (social, cultural, political, economic, technical and environmental dimension). Notwithstanding, little attention is given to the dimension of scale in most discussions about sustainable development, centred as we are in looking for ways of ‘sustaining growth’ instead of stopping or even reversing it. In this article we consider the dimension of scale (or over-scale) particularly making reference to Leopold Kohr’s fundamental and path-breaking analysis. Abundant reference and quotations are made, particularly from his major work ‘The Breakdown of Nations’ as a way of tribute and bringing this fundamental author closer to the Spanish speaking reader once his work has not yet been translated into Spanish

Phosphorus status and cycling in native savanna and improved pastures on an acid low-P Colombian Oxisol

On acid low-phosphorus (P) Colombian Oxisols, improved pastures with acid-soil-tolerant grass and legume varieties have increased beef production by a factor of 10 to 15 with only modest P fertilizer inputs. This indicates that the efficiency of P fertilization could be greater than is commonly expected on such strongly P-sorbing soils. To understand the effect of improved pastures on P cycling and availability, we estimated P budgets, and characterized soil P by sequential fractionation, isotopic exchange and biological activity measurements on soil samples from unfertilized native savanna, and fertilized improved grass-only (Brachiaria decumbens cv. Basilisk) and grass-legume (B. decumbens + Pueraria phaseoloides, Kudzu) pastures established in 1978 on a medium-textured isohyperthermic, tropeptic haplustox. Comparison of calculated P budgets, based on inputs and exports, with total soil P contents showed that fertilization, as part of the improved pasture management, had resulted in a measurable increase of total P in the surface 0-20 cm soil layer of nearly 30 mg kg-1 or about 20% over the savanna level. Sequential soil P fractionation of different seasonal samplings indicated that grass-legume maintained higher organic and available inorganic P levels with less temporal variation than the two other types. The linkage of organic P and available P was also reflected in soil biological activity. Estimates of P in microbial biomass and phosphatase activity were significantly higher in grass-legume than grass-only and savanna. The improvement in soil P availability, as measured by solution P concentration, P sorption and exchangeable P, was much greater in grass-legume than in grass-only. With comparable fertilizer inputs and greater product exports, improved P availability in grass-legume cannot be due to differences in budgets but can be attributed to changes in the overall biological activity in the soil-plant system caused by the presence of legumes in the vegetation cover. Total C, organic P content and macrofaunal activity were all significantly higher in grass-legume soils. Greater turnover of organic litter in grass-legume may provide for steadier organic P inputs and, therefore, higher P cycling and availabilit

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