Flight to quality? An investigation of changing price spreads in commercial real estate markets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the crisis on the pricing of asset quality attributes. This paper uses sales transaction data to examine whether flight from risk phenomena took place in the US office market during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Design/methodology/approach – Hedonic regression procedures are used to test the hypothesis that the spread between the pricing of low-quality and high-quality characteristics increased during the crisis period compared to the pre-crisis period. Findings – The results of the hedonic regression models suggest that the price spread between Class A and other properties grew significantly during the downturn. Research limitations/implications – Our results are consistent with the hypothesis of an increased price spread following a market downturn between Class A and non-Class A offices. The evidence suggests that the relationships between the returns on Class A and non-Class A assets changed during the period of market stress or crisis. Practical implications – These findings have implications for real estate portfolio construction. If regime switches can be predicted and/or responded to rapidly, portfolios may be rebalanced. In crisis periods, portfolios might be reweighted towards Class A properties and in positive market periods, the reweighting would be towards non-Class A assets. Social implications – The global financial crisis has demonstrated that real estate markets play a crucial role in modern economies and that negative developments in these markets have the potential to spillover and create contagion for the larger economy, thereby affecting jobs, incomes and ultimately people’s livelihoods. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies that address the flight to quality phenomenon in commercial real estate markets during periods of financial crisis and market turmoil.

Essays on robust portfolio selection and pension finance

This thesis examines three different, but related problems in the broad area of portfolio management for long-term institutional investors, and focuses mainly on the case of pension funds. The first idea (Chapter 3) is the application of a novel numerical technique – robust optimization – to a real-world pension scheme (the Universities Superannuation Scheme, USS) for first time. The corresponding empirical results are supported by many robustness checks and several benchmarks such as the Bayes-Stein and Black-Litterman models that are also applied for first time in a pension ALM framework, the Sharpe and Tint model and the actual USS asset allocations. The second idea presented in Chapter 4 is the investigation of whether the selection of the portfolio construction strategy matters in the SRI industry, an issue of great importance for long term investors. This study applies a variety of optimal and naïve portfolio diversification techniques to the same SRI-screened universe, and gives some answers to the question of which portfolio strategies tend to create superior SRI portfolios. Finally, the third idea (Chapter 5) compares the performance of a real-world pension scheme (USS) before and after the recent major changes in the pension rules under different dynamic asset allocation strategies and the fixed-mix portfolio approach and quantifies the redistributive effects between various stakeholders. Although this study deals with a specific pension scheme, the methodology can be applied by other major pension schemes in countries such as the UK and USA that have changed their rules.

Identificação e análise dos riscos de um projeto de project finance, sob a ótica do financiador, para uma usina de açúcar e álcool

O setor sucroalcooleiro que, historicamente, já apresentava um alto nível de endividamento, teve sua liquidez piorada quando a crise do subprime americana se instalou em meados de 2008. Apesar do movimento de concentração do setor através de fusões e aquisições e da entrada de grandes players internacionais, a capacidade de investimento do setor continua comprometida. As empresas possuem seus balanços já bastante comprometidos com financiamentos passados e os sócios não conseguem investir em vários projetos ao mesmo tempo. Dentro desse contexto, o Financiamento Estruturado ou Project Finance, como é conhecido, é uma opção muito interessante a ser explorada. Este trabalho tem como objetivo identificar os riscos mais relevantes envolvidos em um financiamento via Project Finance, para uma Usina de Açúcar e Álcool sob a ótica do financiador. É também propósito deste trabalho propor mecanismos de mitigação para esses riscos. Serão apresentados os principais riscos identificados sob a ótica do financiador, os mecanismos para mitigá-los, bem como a apresentação de matrizes de riscos com a contribuição de cada participante. Será considerada para análise uma usina modelo com capacidade de moagem entre 2,5 e 3,0 milhões de toneladas de cana por ano localizada na região centro-oeste do Brasil. Esta análise se baseia em um caso real.

A study of behavioral finance: background, theories and application

Behavioral finance, or behavioral economics, consists of a theoretical field of research stating that consequent psychological and behavioral variables are involved in financial activities such as corporate finance and investment decisions (i.e. asset allocation, portfolio management and so on). This field has known an increasing interest from scholar and financial professionals since episodes of multiple speculative bubbles and financial crises. Indeed, practical incoherencies between economic events and traditional neoclassical financial theories had pushed more and more researchers to look for new and broader models and theories. The purpose of this work is to present the field of research, still ill-known by a vast majority. This work is thus a survey that introduces its origins and its main theories, while contrasting them with traditional finance theories still predominant nowadays. The main question guiding this work would be to see if this area of inquiry is able to provide better explanations for real life market phenomenon. For that purpose, the study will present some market anomalies unsolved by traditional theories, which have been recently addressed by behavioral finance researchers. In addition, it presents a practical application of portfolio management, comparing asset allocation under the traditional Markowitz’s approach to the Black-Litterman model, which incorporates some features of behavioral finance.

International finance and Caribbean development

Includes bibliography

Options for regional integration

Includes bibliography

Financial repression and the Latin American finance pattern

Includes bibliography

Nominal anchors and macroeconomic coordination options in MERCOSUR

Includes bibliography

Identifying financial crises in real time

Following the thermodynamic formulation of a multifractal measure that was shown to enable the detection of large fluctuations at an early stage, here we propose a new index which permits us to distinguish events like financial crises in real time. We calculate the partition function from which we can obtain thermodynamic quantities analogous to the free energy and specific heat. The index is defined as the normalized energy variation and it can be used to study the behavior of stochastic time series, such as financial market daily data. Famous financial market crashes-Black Thursday (1929), Black Monday (1987) and the subprime crisis (2008)-are identified with clear and robust results. The method is also applied to the market fluctuations of 2011. From these results it appears as if the apparent crisis of 2011 is of a different nature to the other three. We also show that the analysis has forecasting capabilities. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Productive development in open economies

Includes bibliography

Climate change in Central América: Potential impacts and public policy options

Since 2008 we have supported the collaborative initiative "Economics of Climate Change in Central America" aimed at demonstrating the impacts of climate variability and change and fostering a discussion on public policies in key sectors. The initiative has been led by the Ministries of Environment and Treasury or Finance of Central America, with the support of their ministerial councils, CCAD, COSEFIN, and Economic Integration Secretariat, SIECA. The Ministries of Agriculture and of Health, with their councils, CAC and COMISCA, have also joined the effort; and the Dominican Republic came on board in 2015.

Plano real e a nova realidade brasileira

This paper analyzes the Real Plan and its effects on two administrations of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), a period which extends from 1995 to 2002. To this end, the study includes a brief review of the problems faced by previous plans, especially the Cruzado Plan and the reasons for the belief that it has been successfull in relation to inflation control. Additionally, seeking to describe the process of moving to the new currency towards stabilization, the paper describes the theoretical foundations of the Plan. In sequence, it defines the backround of both international and domestic monetary reform which was one important part of the Plan and therefore the reasons for the implementation of the monetary reform. Subsequently the paper deals with the effects of the Plan on the economy as a whole, covering also the way the economic measures were taken concerning the Mexican and Asian crisis, the policies used fot the exchange rate, interest rate, fiscal accounts, balance of payments, among other factors and the relationship between them. Hence, it describes the immediate and the long-term consequences of stabilization program in terms of output, employment, public deficit and debt. Therefore, it is important to note the various junctures to which the economy was exposed, and also to point out the challenges and obstacles arising from these changes for growth, which was sometimes fast, sometimes slowing down - the so-called stop and go. Of course, facts as the moving to floating exchange rate regime, the adoption of inflation targeting regime and the adoption of fiscal responsibility law along with the primary surplus policy were able to create a new economic environment and to contribute to later success of the Cardoso years

A dívida pública brasileira: do Plano Real ao governo Dilma Rousseff (2011-2014) : uma análise macroeconômico-estrutural

Elucidação dos principais mecanismos técnicos utilizados na formação de Receitas e Despesas Públicas a fim de entender substancialmente a formação de uma apuração fiscal e de que forma influencia na Dívida Pública Federal.Quais teorias dominantes acerca do sistema governamental e da manutenção da Dívida Pública existentes. Apresentação do conceito de Dívida Pública Federal. Discute os principais índices que remuneram os títulos emitidos pelo Governo Federal e como influenciam na decisão dos agentes na composição de sua carteira de títulos e ademais, como toda esta movimentação influencia na Dívida Pública Federal. Busca-se trazer maior luz ao entendimento da formação da Dívida Pública Federal, levando em conta seu período pós-Plano Real até o recente, no governo da presidente Dilma Rousseff

Firm Market Performance and Volatility in a National Real Estate Sector

We present empirical evidence using daily data for stock prices for 17 real estate companies traded in the Sao Paulo, Brazil stock exchange. from August 26, 2006 to March 31, 2010. We use the U.S. house price bubble, financial crisis and risk measures to instrument for momentums and reversals in the domestic real estate sector. We find evidence of conditional premium persistence and conditional volatility persistence in the market. We find that the conditional risk-return relationship in the sector is consistent with the prospect theory of risk attitudes in this period. Certain companies seem to be operating on a perceived potential industry return above the target, while most others are below the target, and the whole sector is below target on average. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

La Real Hacienda y el control del gasto. La Tesorería General en la España del siglo XVIII

[ES] La evolución historiográfica ocurrida en los últimos años en relación con el mundo de las finanzas en general y las Haciendas reales en particular, ha generado grandes cambios en la percepción del interés por el gasto de los Estados. La potenciación del deseo de observar cómo las Monarquías del Antiguo Régimen gestionan la atención a sus necesidades, conlleva aparejada una creciente atención por el estudio de los organismos encargados de dicha actuación. Entre estas instituciones destaca en la España del siglo XVIII la Tesorería Mayor o Tesorería General. Su estudio permite conocer la evolución política de la Monarquía y de su relación con las finanzas privadas desde una perspectiva diferente. Los estudios centrados en la actuación de este organismo, su composición interna, su estructura territorial, los mecanismos de su ordenación contable y, en definitiva, cualquier tipo de actuación ocurrida dentro del ámbito de su gestión son el objeto del presente estudio.