Macroeconomic risk factors in Australian commercial real estate, listed property trust and property sector stock returns: A comparative analysis using GARCH-M

This paper employs a Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Mean (GARCH-M) model to consider the effect of macroeconomic factors on Australian property returns over the period 1985 to 2002 Three direct (office, retail and industrial property) and two indirect (listed property trust and property stock) returns are included in the analysis, along with market returns, short, medium and long-term interest rates, expected and unexpected inflation, construction activity and industrial employment and production. In general, the macroeconomic factors examined are found to be significant risk factors in Australian commercial property returns. However, the results also indicate that forecast accuracy in these models is higher for direct office, listed property trust and property stock returns and that the persistence of volatility shocks varies across the different markets, with volatility half lives of between five and seven months for direct retail and industrial property, two and three months for direct office property and less than two months with both forms of indirect property investment

Leveling the Field: Talking Levels in Cognitive Science

Talk of levels is everywhere in cognitive science. Whether it is in terms of adjudicating longstanding debates or motivating foundational concepts, one cannot go far without hearing about the need to talk at different ‘levels’. Yet in spite of its widespread application and use, the concept of levels has received little sustained attention within cognitive science. This paper provides an analysis of the various ways the notion of levels has been deployed within cognitive science. The paper begins by introducing and motivating discussion via four representative accounts of levels. It then turns to outlining and relating the four accounts using two dimensions of comparison. The result is the creation of a conceptual framework that maps the logical space of levels talk, which offers an important step toward making sense of levels talk within cognitive science

Macroeconomic risk factors in Australian commercial real estate, listed property trust and property sector stock returns: A comparative analysis using GARCH-M

This paper employs a Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Mean (GARCH-M) model to consider the effect of macroeconomic factors on Australian property returns over the period 1985 to 2002. Three direct (office, retail and industrial property) and two indirect (listed property trust and property stock) returns are included in the analysis, along with market returns, short, medium and long-term interest rates, expected and unexpected inflation, construction activity and industrial employment and production. In general, the macroeconomic factors examined are found to be significant risk factors in Australian commercial property returns. However, the results also indicate that forecast accuracy in these models is higher for direct office, listed property trust and property stock returns and that the persistence of volatility shocks varies across the different markets, with volatility half lives of between five and seven months for direct retail and industrial property, two and three months for direct office property and less than two months with both forms of indirect property investment.Property returns; listed property trust, property stocks, market risk; interest rate risk; industrial

Do Organisational Climate and Strategic Orientation Moderate the Relationship Between Human Resource Management Practices and Productivity?

Contingency formulations of Human Resource Management (HRM) theory suggest thatthe effectiveness of HRM practices should vary across firms. This study examinedwhether the relationship between HRM practices and productivity in manufacturingcompanies is contingent upon organizational climate and strategic orientation.Information on HRM, organizational structure, and competitive strategy was collected byinterviewing senior managers, whilst organizational climate was assessed via employeesurveys. Although organizational climate and HRM practices were both positivelyassociated with subsequent productivity, the relationship between HRM practices andsubsequent productivity was stronger for firms with a poor climate.Human Resource Management, organisational structure, organisationalclimate, productivity

Approximate entropy of network parameters

We study the notion of approximate entropy within the framework of network theory. Approximate entropy is an uncertainty measure originally proposed in the context of dynamical systems and time series. We firstly define a purely structural entropy obtained by computing the approximate entropy of the so called slide sequence. This is a surrogate of the degree sequence and it is suggested by the frequency partition of a graph. We examine this quantity for standard scale-free and Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi networks. By using classical results of Pincus, we show that our entropy measure converges with network size to a certain binary Shannon entropy. On a second step, with specific attention to networks generated by dynamical processes, we investigate approximate entropy of horizontal visibility graphs. Visibility graphs permit to naturally associate to a network the notion of temporal correlations, therefore providing the measure a dynamical garment. We show that approximate entropy distinguishes visibility graphs generated by processes with different complexity. The result probes to a greater extent these networks for the study of dynamical systems. Applications to certain biological data arising in cancer genomics are finally considered in the light of both approaches.Comment: 11 pages, 5 EPS figure