Aftermarket short covering in ipos and long-term stock liquidity

This study investigates the effect of the aftermarket short covering (ASC) carried out by the underwriter during the price stabilization period on stock long-term liquidity. Because the ASC increases liquidity during the stabilization period and liquidity is a persistent characteristic of stocks, the ASC can increase long-term liquidity. In fact, we show that the ASC has a positive effect on liquidity over the 6 months subsequent to the stabilization period. This positive relation holds true even after controlling for many variables found important to explain liquidity by previous authors and the instrumentalization of the ASC.

Municipalities secession and uncertainty on public goods provision

This paper investigates the causes of municipalities secession in Brazil. The theoretical model proposes that the median voter is not fully informed about the efficiency effect of secession on public good provision and uses the break up decision undertaken by neighbor’s municipalities within the state to account for his voting. Our empirical results confirms that prediction

A notion of subgame perfect Nash equilibrium under knightian uncertainty

We define a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium under Knightian uncertainty for two players, by means of a recursive backward induction procedure. We prove an extension of the Zermelo-von Neumann-Kuhn Theorem for games of perfect information, i. e., that the recursive procedure generates a Nash equilibrium under uncertainty (Dow and Werlang(1994)) of the whole game. We apply the notion for two well known games: the chain store and the centipede. On the one hand, we show that subgame perfection under Knightian uncertainty explains the chain store paradox in a one shot version. On the other hand, we show that subgame perfection under uncertainty does not account for the leaving behavior observed in the centipede game. This is in contrast to Dow, Orioli and Werlang(1996) where we explain by means of Nash equilibria under uncertainty (but not subgame perfect) the experiments of McKelvey and Palfrey(1992). Finally, we show that there may be nontrivial subgame perfect equilibria under uncertainty in more complex extensive form games, as in the case of the finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma, which accounts for cooperation in early stages of the game.

Exogenous expectations on endogenous uncertainty: recursive equilibrium and survival

This paper analyses general equilibrium models with finite heterogeneous agents having exogenous expectations on endogenous uncertainty. It is shown that there exists a recursive equilibrium with the state space consisting of the past aggregate portfolio distribution and the current state of the nature and that it implements the sequential equilibrium. We establish conditions under which the recursive equilibrium is continuous. Moreover, we use the continuous recursive relation of the aggregate variables to prove that if the economy has two types of agents, the one who commits persistent mistakes on the expectation rules of the future endogenous variables is driven out of the market by the others with correct anticipations of the variables, that is, the rational expectations agents.

Value and momentum strategies in the Brazilian stock market: the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath

Esta dissertação analisa o desempenho de três estratégias de investimento em carteiras de custo zero (“value”, “momentum” e uma combinação 50/50 delas, que é chamada de “combo”) no mercado de ações brasileiro durante a última década. Os resultados são comparados aos encontrados por Asness, Moskowitz e Pedersen (2009) para quatro mercados: EUA, Reino Unido, Europa Continental, e Japão. Uma análise específica é feita em torno da crise financeira de 2008, comparando os resultados pré- e pós-crise. O índice de Sharpe é usado para ajustar os desempenhos por seus riscos, e para classificar as estratégias para diferentes horizontes de investimento. Os resultados mostram um ótimo desempenho da estratégia “combo” nos últimos três anos, período que inclui a crise de 2008, mas considerando todo o período analisado a estratégia “value” obteve o melhor desempenho. Esse resultado difere dos resultados encontrados para os quatro mercados de referência, onde a estratégia combo tem o melhor desempenho. A análise do horizonte de investimento mostra que a escolha do investidor pode mudar com diferentes horizontes.

Monetary policy and the cross-section of stock returns: a FAVAR approach

We use a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) to estimate the impact of monetary policy shocks on the cross-section of stock returns. Our FAVAR combines unobserved factors extracted from a large set of nancial and macroeconomic indicators with the Federal Funds rate. We nd that monetary policy shocks have heterogeneous e ects on the crosssection of stock returns. These e ects are very well explained by the degree of external nance dependence, as well as by other sectoral characteristics.

Cash flow and discount rate risk decomposition and ICAPM for the US and brazilian stock markets

Esse trabalho é uma aplicação do modelo intertemporal de apreçamento de ativos desenvolvido por Campbell (1993) e Campbell e Vuolteenaho (2004) para as carteiras de Fama-French 2x3 brasileiras no period de janeiro de 2003 a abril de 2012 e para as carteiras de Fama-French 5x5 americanas em diferentes períodos. As varíaveis sugeridas por Campbell e Vuolteenaho (2004) para prever os excessos de retorno do mercado acionário americano no period de 1929 a 2001 mostraram-se também bons preditores de excesso de retorno para o mercado brasileiro no período recente, com exceção da inclinação da estrutura a termo das taxas de juros. Entretanto, mostramos que um aumento no small stock value spread indica maior excesso de retorno no futuro, comportamento que não é coerente com a explicação para o prêmio de valor sugerida pelo modelo intertemporal. Ainda, utilizando os resíduos do VAR preditivo para definir o risco de choques de fluxo de caixa e de choques nas taxas de desconto das carteiras de teste, verificamos que o modelo intertemporal resultante não explica adequadamente os retornos observados. Para o mercado norte-americano, concluímos que a abilidade das variáveis propostas para explicar os excessos de retorno do mercado varia no tempo. O sucesso de Campbell e Vuolteenaho (2004) em explicar o prêmio de valor para o mercado norte-americano na amostra de 1963 a 2001 é resultado da especificação do VAR na amostra completa, pois mostramos que nenhuma das varíaveis é um preditor de retorno estatisticamente significante nessa sub-amostra.

Aggregate uncertainty, disappointment aversion and the business cycle

We investigate the eff ect of aggregate uncertainty shocks on real variables. More speci fically, we introduce a shock in the volatility of productivity in an RBC model with long-run volatility risk and preferences that exhibit generalised disappointment aversion. We find that, when combined with a negative productivity shock, a volatility shock leads to further decline in real variables, such as output, consumption, hours worked and investment. For instance, out of the 2% decrease in output as a result of both shocks, we attribute 0.25% to the e ffect of an increase in volatility. We also fi nd that this e ffect is the same as the one obtained in a model with Epstein-Zin- Weil preferences, but higher than that of a model with expected utility. Moreover, GDA preferences yield superior asset pricing results, when compared to both Epstein-Zin-Weil preferences and expected utility.

Otimização de alavancagem e gestão de risco em estratégias long-short

Alavancagem em hedge funds tem preocupado investidores e estudiosos nos últimos anos. Exemplos recentes de estratégias desse tipo se mostraram vantajosos em períodos de pouca incerteza na economia, porém desastrosos em épocas de crise. No campo das finanças quantitativas, tem-se procurado encontrar o nível de alavancagem que otimize o retorno de um investimento dado o risco que se corre. Na literatura, os estudos têm se mostrado mais qualitativos do que quantitativos e pouco se tem usado de métodos computacionais para encontrar uma solução. Uma forma de avaliar se alguma estratégia de alavancagem aufere ganhos superiores do que outra é definir uma função objetivo que relacione risco e retorno para cada estratégia, encontrar as restrições do problema e resolvê-lo numericamente por meio de simulações de Monte Carlo. A presente dissertação adotou esta abordagem para tratar o investimento em uma estratégia long-short em um fundo de investimento de ações em diferentes cenários: diferentes formas de alavancagem, dinâmicas de preço das ações e níveis de correlação entre esses preços. Foram feitas simulações da dinâmica do capital investido em função das mudanças dos preços das ações ao longo do tempo. Considerou-se alguns critérios de garantia de crédito, assim como a possibilidade de compra e venda de ações durante o período de investimento e o perfil de risco do investidor. Finalmente, estudou-se a distribuição do retorno do investimento para diferentes níveis de alavancagem e foi possível quantificar qual desses níveis é mais vantajoso para a estratégia de investimento dadas as restrições de risco.

Indexing stock portfolios in Brazil: tracking the IBOVESPA and the FGV 100

Indexing is a passive investment strategy in which the investor weights bis portfolio to match the performance of a broad-based indexo Since severaI studies showed that indexed portfolios have consistently outperformed active management strategies over the last decades, an increasing number of investors has become interested in indexing portfolios IateIy. Brazilian financiaI institutions do not offer indexed portfolios to their clients at this point in time. In this work we propose the use of indexed portfolios to track the performance oftwo ofthe most important Brazilian stock indexes: the mOVESPA and the FGVIOO. We test the tracking performance of our modeI by a historical simulation. We applied several statistical tests to the data to verify how many stocks should be used to controI the portfolio tracking error within user specified bounds.

Uncertainty of aid inflows and the growth relationship

This paper contributes to the literature on aid and economic growth. We posit that it is not the levei of aid flows per se but the stability of such flows that determines the impact of aid on economic growth. Three measures of aid instability are employed. One is a simple deviation from trend, and measures overall instability. The other measures are based on auto-regressive estimates to capture deviations from an expected trend. These measures are intended to proxy for uncertainty in aid receipts. We posit that such uncertainty will influence the relationship between aid and investment and how recipient governments respond to aid, and will therefore affect how aid impacts on growth. We estimate a standard cross-country growth regression including the leveI of aid, and find aid to be insignificant (in line with other results in the literature). We then introduce measures of instability. Aid remains insignificant when we account for overall instability. However, when we account for uncertainty (which is negative and significant), we find that aid has a significant positive effect on growth. We conduct stability tests that show that the significance of aid is largely due to its effect on the volume of investment. The finding that uncertainty of aid receipts reduces the effectiveness of aid is robust. When we control for this, aid appears to have a significant positive influence on growth. When the regression is estimated for the sub-sample of African countries these findings hold, although the effectiveness of aid appears weaker than for the full sample.

The effects of uncertainty about the timing of deals on consumer behavior

I examine the effects of uncertainty about the timing of de aIs (i.e. temporary price cuts or sales) on consumer behavior in a dynamic inventory model of consumer choice. I derive implications for purchase behavior and test them empirically, using two years of scanner data for soft drinks. I fmd that loyal consumers' decisions, both about the allocation of their purchases over time and the quantity to be purchased in a particular deal, are affected by the uncertainty about the timing of the deal for the product. Loyal consumers buy a higher fraction of their overall purchases during de ais as the uncertainty decreases. This effect increases with an increase in the product' s share of a given consumer' s purchase in the same category or if the consumer stockpiles (i.e., is a shopper). During a particular deal, loyal shoppers increase the quantity they purchase the more time that has passed since the previous de aI, and the higher the uncertainty about the deals' timing. For the non-Ioyal consumers these effects are not significant. These results hold for products that are frequently purchased, like soft-drinks and yogurt, but do not hold for less frequentIy purchased products, such as laundry detergents. The fmdings suggest that manufacturers and retailers should incorporate the effects of deals' timing on consumers' purchase' decisions when deriving optimal pricing strategies.

Especulative (sic) attack on exchange rate target zone regime : the uncertainty case

We present a continuous time target zone model of speculative attacks. Contrary to most of the literature that considers the certainty case, i.e., agents know for sure the Central Bank behavior in the future, we build uncertainty into the madel in two different ways. First, we consider the case in whicb the leveI of reserves at which the central bank lets the regime collapse is uncertain. Alternatively, we ana1ize the case in which, with some probability, the government may cbange its policy reducing the initially positive trend in domestic credito In both cases, contrary to the case of a fixed exchange rate regime, speculators face a cost of launching a tentative attack that may not succeed. Such cost induces a delay and may even prevent its occurrence. At the time of the tentative attack, the exchange rate moves either discretely up, if the attack succeeds, or down, if it fails. The remlts are consistent with the fact that, typically, an attack involves substantial profits and losses for the speculators. In particular, if agents believed that the government will control fiscal imbalances in the future, or alternatively, if they believe the trend in domestic credit to be temporary, the attack is postponed even in the presence of a signal of an imminent collapse. Finally, we aIso show that the timing of a speculative attack increases with the width of the target zone.

A notion of subgame perfect nash equilibrium under knightian uncertainty

We define a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium under Knightian uncertainty for two players, by means of a recursive backward induction procedure. We prove an extension of the Zermelo-von Neumann-Kuhn Theorem for games of perfect information, i. e., that the recursive procedure generates a Nash equilibrium under uncertainty (Dow and Werlang(1994)) of the whole game. We apply the notion for two well known games: the chain store and the centipede. On the one hand, we show that subgame perfection under Knightian uncertainty explains the chain store paradox in a one shot version. On the other hand, we show that subgame perfection under uncertainty does not account for the leaving behavior observed in the centipede game. This is in contrast to Dow, Orioli and Werlang(1996) where we explain by means of Nash equilibria under uncertainty (but not subgame perfect) the experiments of McKelvey and Palfrey(1992). Finally, we show that there may be nontrivial subgame perfect equilibria under uncertainty in more complex extensive form games, as in the case of the finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma, which accounts for cooperation in early stages of the game .