A Note on Embedded Lease Options

Buetow and Albert (1998) discuss options embedded in lease contracts. They present a pricing framework, calibrate it using data from the National Real Estate Index and apply it using a numerical method known as the finite difference method with absorbing boundaries. In this note the analysis is extended. Firstly, analytic solutions are presented. Secondly, some of the findings are discussed. Finally, the framework developed by Grenadier is used to compare indexed renewal options for different lease lengths.

trans-Bis(tert-butylamine)dichloropalladium(II)

The asymmetric unit of the title complex, trans-[PdCl2(NH2tBu)2], consists of two independent square-planar molecules, linked together in a hydrogen-bonding network, with the resultant alignment of the tert-butyl groups defining a two-dimensional layered structure approximately parallel to (001)

Rental Expectations and the Term Structure of Lease Rates

We consider the term structure of lease rates in a general setting where both the interest rate and the short rent are stochastic. Our framework is applicable to any leasing market, but we focus on real estate. We find that the “expectations hypothesis” of lease rates, i.e. that the forward rent is an unbiased estimator of the future short rent, requires similar assumptions as in interest rate theory to hold. To study the magnitude of the bias we parameterize our general framework. The simulations show that different realistic parameter values for risk aversion and interest rate stochastics can generate widely different shapes of the rental term structure, holding the objective rental expectations constant. As a result, an expected increase in rent may very well be consistent with a downward-sloping term structure and vice versa.Term structure of lease rates; Rental expectations; Expectations hypothesis; Lease valuation

A Note on the Pricing of Real Estate Index Linked Swaps

In this paper we discuss the pricing of commercial real estate index linked swaps (CREILS). This particular pricing problem has been studied by Buttimer et al. (1997) in a previous paper. We show that their results are only approximately correct and that the true theoretical price of the swap is in fact equal to zero. This result is shown to hold regardless of the specific model chosen for the index process, the dividend process, and the interest rate term structure. We provide an intuitive economic argument as well as a full mathematical proof of our result. In particular we show that the nonzero result in the previous paper is due to two specific numerical approximations introduced in that paper, and we discuss these approximation errors from a theoretical as well as from a numerical point of view.Real estate; index linked swaps; arbitrage

'Answer your names please': a small-scale exploration of teachers technologically mediated 'new lives'

Conducted over a three year period in an English secondary school, this study employs a distributional analysis across three scales to explore Real Time Attendance Registration (RTAR). Ethnographic data, Day and Gu’s teachers’ new lives, and Foucault’s normalisation, are mobilised to investigate how RTAR mediated the key informant’s work. I argue that the teacher in this study faced complex, demanding and normalised conditions emanating from register taking becoming a technology mediated and performativity led activity. I suggest that from examining RTAR, those interested in teachers’ new lives might gain an understanding of how, in the case in point, technology mediated the normalisation of the attendance registration process

Why bother with masterliness?

In this chapter, I draw on an empirical study to discuss how teachers inhabiting different stages of their career trajectories chose to engage with master's level professional development (PD) and masterliness (LaVelle, 2012). I argue that performative agendas in schools have increasingly led to two types of masterly professional development - the Institutional (IPD) and the personal (PPD). I maintain that IPD engagers choose an overt and career focussed model of masterliness and with it the mantra of tools such as Random Controlled Trials. This is in contrast to PPD engagers who saw masterliness as a self reflective, and potentially covert, process and those informants - master’s non-engagers (MNE) - who turned their backs on masterliness completely. I maintain that an examination such as this has implications for the PD practice of teachers, school leaders and policy makers

Soviet Illegal Whaling: The Devil and the Details

In 1948, the U.S.S.R. began a global campaign of illegal whaling that lasted for three decades and, together with the poorly managed “legal” whaling of other nations, seriously depleted whale populations. Although the general story of this whaling has been told and the catch record largely corrected for the Southern Hemisphere, major gaps remain in the North Pacific. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the details of this system or its economic context. Using interviews with former Soviet whalers and biologists as well as previously unavailable reports and other material in Russian, our objective is to describe how the Soviet whaling industry was structured and how it worked, from the largest scale of state industrial planning down to the daily details of the ways in which whales were caught and processed, and how data sent to the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics were falsified. Soviet whaling began with the factory ship Aleut in 1933, but by 1963 the industry had a truly global reach, with seven factory fleets (some very large). Catches were driven by a state planning system that set annual production targets. The system gave bonuses and honors only when these were met or exceeded, and it frequently increased the following year’s targets to match the previous year’s production; scientific estimates of the sustainability of the resource were largely ignored. Inevitably, this system led to whale populations being rapidly reduced. Furthermore, productivity was measured in gross output (weights of whales caught), regardless of whether carcasses were sound or rotten, or whether much of the animal was unutilized. Whaling fleets employed numerous people, including women (in one case as the captain of a catcher boat). Because of relatively high salaries and the potential for bonuses, positions in the whaling industry were much sought-after. Catching and processing of whales was highly mechanized and became increasingly efficient as the industry gained more experience. In a single day, the largest factory ships could process up to 200 small sperm whales, Physeter macrocephalus; 100 humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae; or 30–35 pygmy blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda. However, processing of many animals involved nothing more than stripping the carcass of blubber and then discarding the rest. Until 1952, the main product was whale oil; only later was baleen whale meat regularly utilized. Falsified data on catches were routinely submitted to the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics, but the true catch and biological data were preserved for research and administrative purposes. National inspectors were present at most times, but, with occasional exceptions, they worked primarily to assist fulfillment of plan targets and routinely ignored the illegal nature of many catches. In all, during 40 years of whaling in the Antarctic, the U.S.S.R. reported 185,778 whales taken but at least 338,336 were actually killed. Data for the North Pacific are currently incomplete, but from provisional data we estimate that at least 30,000 whales were killed illegally in this ocean. Overall, we judge that, worldwide, the U.S.S.R. killed approximately 180,000 whales illegally and caused a number of population crashes. Finally, we note that Soviet illegal catches continued after 1972 despite the presence of international observers on factory fleets

Agricultural System Structure and the Egyptian Cotton Leafworm

Many problems of agricultural production systems can be understood and solved only by understanding the overall production systems of which they are parts. An example is the Egyptian cotton leafworm, which is one of the main pests on the cotton crop in the Arab Republic of Egypt. The main control measures now used against this insect are hand-picking of egg-masses and aerial spraying of pesticides. Both are intensive, and little increase in their efficiency is possible. But the structure of the cropping system is such that relatively minor alterations in the crop rotation may have a marked impact on leafworm population dynamics at relatively low cost. The technical issues involved in these alterations are well within the realm of possibility. But to implement them would require the development of a comprehensive view of the agricultural production system as a whole, a high sensitivity to the needs and decision-making frameworks of the Egyptian fellah, and an understanding of the biology of the cotton leafworm