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Market Participants (market + participant)
Selected AbstractsThe State-by-State Economic Impacts of the 2002 Shutdown of the Los Angeles,Long Beach PortsGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2008JIYOUNG PARK ABSTRACT In previous research, the economic impacts of temporary shutdowns of the Los Angeles,Long Beach harbors were simulated after a hypothetical terrorist attack, applying the National Interstate Economic Model to estimate state-by-state as well as interindustry impacts. However, the unpredictable characteristic of terrorist attacks might not be applicable to the case of a ports shutdown such as the one caused by the lockout of September,October 2002. Market participants can be expected to have contingency plans based on anticipations of a strike or shutdown. Can we identify any of these in terms of the use of alternate ports, in terms of alternate modes or even alternate time periods? The purpose of this study is to examine these questions. The approach is elaborated by testing for the possible effects of trade diversion to other West Coast ports, transportation modes, and intertemporal substitutions. We use data from WISERTrade describing commodity-specific trade for the major West Coast ports before, during, and after the 11-day shutdown of the fall of 2002. Shippers' ability to divert trade is a key ingredient in the economy's ability to withstand attacks and disruptions. The work estimates the impacts on 47 industrial sectors across 50 states (and the District of Columbia). [source] Foreign Bond Investment and the Yield Curve,ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2009Sangwon Suh Abstract Market participants have argued that the yield curve in the Korean bond market has been increasingly flattened since 2007 caused partly by foreign investors' rapidly growing investment in Korean bond market, motivated to take advantage of market imperfections seeking riskless profit making opportunities. To analyze how much foreign bond investments have affected the bond yields in Korea, in this paper I utilize a stylized affine term structure model that has an observable factor related with foreign bond investments as well as latent factors. I find supportive evidence for the argument by market participants that investment by foreigners has been an important factor behind the flattening of the yield curve since 2007. Taking out the effects of foreign bond investment on the yields, I observe much a weakened yield flattening phenomenon. [source] Price competition under universal service obligationsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 3 2010Axel Gautier L13; L51 In industries like telecom, postal services or energy provision, universal service obligations (uniform price and universal coverage) are often imposed on one market participant. Universal service obligations are likely to alter firms' strategic behavior in such competitive markets. In the present paper, we show that, depending on the entrant's market coverage and the degree of product differentiation, the Nash equilibrium in prices involves either pure or mixed strategies. We show that the pure strategy market sharing equilibrium, as identified by Valletti, Hoernig, and Barros (2002), defines a lower bound on the level of equilibrium prices. [source] Maximizing revenue in Grid markets using an economically enhanced resource managerCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 14 2010M. Macías Abstract Traditional resource management has had as its main objective the optimization of throughput, based on parameters such as CPU, memory, and network bandwidth. With the appearance of Grid markets, new variables that determine economic expenditure, benefit and opportunity must be taken into account. The Self-organizing ICT Resource Management (SORMA) project aims at allowing resource owners and consumers to exploit market mechanisms to sell and buy resources across the Grid. SORMA's motivation is to achieve efficient resource utilization by maximizing revenue for resource providers and minimizing the cost of resource consumption within a market environment. An overriding factor in Grid markets is the need to ensure that the desired quality of service levels meet the expectations of market participants. This paper explains the proposed use of an economically enhanced resource manager (EERM) for resource provisioning based on economic models. In particular, this paper describes techniques used by the EERM to support revenue maximization across multiple service level agreements and provides an application scenario to demonstrate its usefulness and effectiveness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Ex Post Voluntary Disclosure Strategies for Insiders,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2003Carolyn B. Levine Abstract Asymmetric information between corporate insiders and other market participants can lead to large bid-ask spreads or even a collapse of trade in financial markets. In this paper, we discuss how voluntary disclosure by insiders can remedy this problem. When insiders make disclosure decisions after they become informed, other market participants update their prior beliefs on the basis of both the information disclosed and the information not disclosed. Insiders then give up some or all of their information advantage to weakly increase their profits. These results do not rely on ex ante commitments on the part of the insiders. [source] Resource Allocation Effects of Price Reactions to Disclosures,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2002Ronald A. Dye Abstract Capital market participants collectively may possess information about the valuation implications of a firm's change in strategy not known by the management of the firm proposing the change. We ask whether a firm's management can exploit the capital market's information in deciding either whether to proceed with a contemplated strategy change or whether to continue with a previously initiated strategy change. In the case of a proposed strategy change, we show that managers can extract the capital market's information by announcing a potential new strategy, and then conditioning the decision to implement the new strategy on the size of the market's price reaction to the announcement. Under this arrangement, we show that a necessary condition to implement all and only positive net present value strategy changes is that managers proceed to implement some strategies that garner negative price reactions upon their announcement. In the case of deciding whether to continue with a previously implemented strategy change, we show that it may be optimal for the firm to predicate its abandonment/continuation decision on the magnitude of the costs it has already incurred. Thus, what looks like "sunk-cost" behavior may in fact be optimal. Both demonstrations show that, in addition to performing their usual role of anticipating future cash flows generated by a manager's actions, capital market prices can also be used to direct a manager's actions. It follows that, in contrast to the usual depiction of the information flows between capital markets and firms as being one way , from firms to the capital markets , information also flows from capital markets to firms. [source] Liquidity in Asset Markets With Search FrictionsECONOMETRICA, Issue 2 2009Ricardo Lagos We develop a search-theoretic model of financial intermediation in an over-the-counter market and study how trading frictions affect the distribution of asset holdings and standard measures of liquidity. A distinctive feature of our theory is that it allows for unrestricted asset holdings, so market participants can accommodate trading frictions by adjusting their asset positions. We show that these individual responses of asset demands constitute a fundamental feature of illiquid markets: they are a key determinant of trade volume, bid,ask spreads, and trading delays,the dimensions of market liquidity that search-based theories seek to explain. [source] Macroeconomic News and the Euro/Dollar Exchange RateECONOMIC NOTES, Issue 3 2003Gabriele Galati This paper investigates to what extent daily movements in the euro/dollar rate were driven by news about the macroeconomic situation in the USA and the euro area during the first two years of EMU. We examine whether market participants reacted to news in different ways depending on whether the news came from the USA or from the euro area, and whether the news was good or bad. Furthermore, we investigate whether traders' reaction to news has changed over time. We find that macroeconomic news has a statistically significant correlation with daily movements of the euro against the dollar. However, this relationship exhibits considerable time variation. There are indications of asymmetric response, but to different extents at different times. Our results also provide evidence that the market seemed to ignore good news and remain fixated on bad news from the euro area, as often claimed in market commentaries, but only for some time. Finally, we find evidence that the impact of macroeconomic news on the euro/dollar rate was stronger when news switches from good to bad or vice versa. (J.E.L.: F31). [source] Modelling volatility clustering in electricity price return series for forecasting value at riskEUROPEAN TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL POWER, Issue 1 2009R. G. Karandikar Abstract Modelling of non-stationary time series using regression methodology is challenging. The wavelet transforms can be used to model non-stationary time series having volatility clustering. The traditional risk measure is variance and now a days Value at Risk (VaR) is widely used in finance. In competitive environment, the prices are volatile and price risk forecasting is necessary for the market participants. The forecasting period may be 1 week or higher depending upon the requirement. In this paper, a model is developed for volatility clustering in electricity price return series and its application for forecasting VaR is demonstrated. The first model is using GARCH (1, 1). The VaR of variance rate series, that is worst-case volatility is calculated using variance method using wavelet transform. The model is used to forecast variance rate (volatility) for a sample case of 1-week half-hourly price return series. The second model developed is for forecasting VaR for price return series of 440 days. This model is developed using wavelets via multi-resolution analysis and uses regime-switching technique. The historical data of daily average prices is obtained from 100% pool type New South Wales (NSW), a zonal market of National Electricity Market (NEM), Australia. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Bidding behaviour and electricity market simulationEUROPEAN TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL POWER, Issue 4 2007T. Chandarasupsang Abstract To trade effectively and profitably in new electricity market structures, participants need to identify how best to use information available to them. In many cases only incomplete information will be available for short-term planning, trading and decision-making. This paper simulates a group of generators who adapt bidding behaviours in different segments of liberalised electricity markets based on historic market information, observed strategies and their view of other market participants. Results show that even in the incomplete information case efficient bidding strategy for market participants can be identified. Specifically, this paper presents some key findings from an active electricity market and utilises them within an electricity market simulation. The benefit of market simulation for participants is identified and reported. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The impact of lunchtime closure on market behaviour: evidence from the Sydney Futures ExchangeACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 1-2 2001Alex Frino This paper examines the impact of lunchtime closure on market behaviour. Between May and September, 1994 the Sydney Futures Exchange trialed lunchtime trading. The trial provides a unique natural laboratory experiment for examining the impact of lunchtime closure. The analysis reported in this paper documents abnormally high bid ask spreads, price volatility and trading volume on re-opening of the market following lunchtime closure. These results confirm that closure has an impact on trading activity, and are consistent with the effects of strategic informed trading, a loss in price discovery and/or trading associated with risk transfer. An abnormal increase in trading volume prior to lunchtime closure is also documented, providing unambiguous evidence of trading activity motivated by risk transfer. Overall these results imply that lunchtime closure disrupts trading activity and reduces market quality by imposing additional costs on market participants. [source] The Euro and International Capital MarketsINTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 1 2000Carsten Detken Long before the introduction of the euro there was an active debate among researchers, policy-makers and financial market participants over how the new European money would change the relative roles of currencies in the international monetary and financial system. A widely held view was that the euro's use in international capital markets would be the key element. Therefore, this paper provides a broad empirical examination of the major currencies' roles in international capital markets, with a special emphasis on the first year of the euro. A contribution is made as to how to measure these roles, both from the viewpoint of international financing and from that of international investment activities. Time series of these new measures are presented, including euro aggregates calculated up to six years back in time. The data allow for the identification of changes in the role of the euro during 1999 compared to the aggregate of euro predecessor currencies, net of intra-euro area assets/liabilities, since the start of stage 2 of EMU in 1994. A number of key factors determining the currency distribution of international portfolio investments, such as relative market liquidity and relative risk characteristics of assets, are also examined empirically. It turns out that for almost all important market segments for which data are available, the euro immediately became the second most widely used currency for international financing and investment. For the flow of international bond and note issuance it even slightly overtook the US dollar in the second half of 1999. The data also suggest that most of this early supply of euro bonds by non-euro area residents, clearly exceeding the euro-predecessor currency aggregate, is actually absorbed by euro area residents and not by outside investors so far. [source] Groundnut consumption frequency in GhanaINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 6 2008Curtis M. Jolly Abstract Groundnut (peanut) is an important food and oil crop in Ghana, but little is known about the factors influencing consumption. The study surveyed market participants; investigated the frequency and forms of groundnut consumed; and evaluated the factors influencing consumers' decisions to eat groundnuts in Ghana. About 80% of respondents consume groundnut and/or its products at least once a week and 32.0% consume it three times a week. Logistic models showed that age, education and the form in which groundnuts are consumed influence the frequency of groundnut consumption. Total revenue and the form in which groundnut is eaten influence farmers consumption decision whereas groundnut consumption by poultry farmers is influenced by knowledge of the health effects of groundnuts on birds and the form in which groundnut is eaten by the poultry producers. Processors' frequency of consumption is influenced by the form in which groundnut is consumed and their knowledge of reasons for sorting. The results are important for market segmentation for demand projection along the marketing chain. [source] Asymmetries in Transatlantic Monetary Policy-making: Does the ECB Follow the Fed?,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 5 2005ANSGAR BELKE The belief that the European Central Bank (ECB) follows the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) in setting its policy is so entrenched with market participants and commentators that the search for empirical support would seem to be a trivial task. However, this is not the case. We find that the ECB is indeed often influenced by the Fed, but the reverse is true at least as often if one considers longer sample periods. There is empirically little support for the proposition that there has for a long time been a systematic asymmetric leader-follower relationship between the ECB and the Fed. Only after September 2001 is there more evidence of such an asymmetry. There is a clear-cut structural break between the period pre-economic and monetary union (EMU) and EMU itself in terms of the relationship between short-term interest rates on both sides of the Atlantic. [source] MIT Roundtable on Corporate Risk ManagementJOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 4 2008Article first published online: 16 DEC 200 Against the backdrop of financial crisis, a distinguished group of academics and practitioners discusses the contribution of financial management and innovation to corporate growth and value, along with the pitfalls and unintended consequences of such innovation. The main focus of most panelists is the importance of a capital structure and risk management approach that complement the strategy and operations of the business. Instructive examples are provided by Judy Lewent, former CFO and head of strategic planning at Merck, and Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder, director of finance and risk management at the International Finance Corporation. But if these represent successful applications of finance theory, what about the large number of cases where the use of derivatives and other innovations has led to high leverage and apparent risk management failures? Part of the current trouble, as pointed out by Andrew Lo, can be attributed to the failure of risk managers and their models to account for highly improbable events,the so-called fat tails of the distribution. But, as Robert Merton suggests in closing, there is a more comprehensive explanation for today's problems: the tendency of market participants to respond to potentially risk-reducing financial innovation by increasing their risk-taking in other areas. "What we have here," says Merton, ,are two partly offsetting effects of innovation,one that is reducing the risk of companies and their investors, and another that is encouraging greater risk-taking. From a social or regulatory standpoint, the goal is to find the right balance between these two effects or forces. [source] The Market Evaluation of Information in Directors' TradesJOURNAL OF BUSINESS FINANCE & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1-2 2002David Hillier The purpose of this paper is to examine the propensity, characteristics and performance of directors' trades. Consistent with prior research we show that on average, directors outperform the market. However, we also find that there exist a large number of trades which do not share these abnormal share price returns and consequently have little information content. This has important consequences for market participants who use director trading activity as a signal for their own trading strategies. Using different measures of directors' trades based on trade characteristics, we report that purchases by directors are more informative than sales. In addition, the number of directors trading within a twenty day window and the percentage of the directors' holding that is being traded are both important factors in the abnormal share price performance following the trade. [source] A Transaction Structure Approach to Assessing the Dynamics and Impacts of ,Business-to-Business' Electronic CommerceJOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2002Dr Richard Hawkins This paper proposes some ways forward in stimulating and structuring interdisciplinary research on business-to-business electronic commerce. A ,commerce-centered' perspective is proposed that is grounded in concepts of commerce as a complex socio-economic institution. On this basis, a conceptual framework is developed for assessing the dynamics and impacts of electronic commerce in the value chains of products and services. The approach focuses on examining technical change in transaction structures, and how this relates to the evolution of electronically-mediated business relationships in the rapidly developing Internet environment. The approach is oriented towards critical research questions concerning the effects of electronic commerce on the ways various market participants exercise and/or respond to control over the organization and operation of value chains, and the implications for business, the public interest and policy. The practical research possibilities of the transaction structure approach are then discussed as oriented toward a comparative analytical framework. [source] Australian wines in the British wine market: A hedonic price analysisAGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 3 2004Bodo E. Steiner The market share of New World wines sold in many European countries has increased dramatically over the past decade. More aggressive marketing, together with a more distinct and recognizable labeling scheme, are often regarded as the keys to the marketing success of these new wines. This article employs hedonic price analysis to identify the values that marketers and consumers place on the information carried by the label of Australian wines in the British wine retail market. Although many grape varieties are given a highly distinct valuation by market participants, our results also suggest that consumers consider regions jointly with grape varieties as proxies for brands. This contrasts with the general observation that grape varietal labeling is the distinctive feature of New World wines. Marketing implications are examined by considering the revenue impact of changes in labeling at the retail level. [JEL citations: L150, D12, C21.] © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 20: 287,307, 2004. [source] A speculative bubble in commodity futures prices?AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010Cross-sectional evidence Commitment's of traders; Index funds; Commodity futures markets Abstract Recent accusations against speculators in general and long-only commodity index funds in particular include: increasing market volatility, distorting historical price relationships, and fueling a rapid increase and decrease in the level of commodity prices. Some researchers have argued that these market participants,through their impact on market prices,may have inadvertently prevented the efficient distribution of food aid to deserving groups. Certainly, this result,if substantiated,would counter the classical argument that speculators make prices more efficient and thus improve the economic efficiency of the food marketing system. Given the very important policy implications, it is crucial to develop a more thorough understanding of long-only index funds and their potential market impact. Here, we review the criticisms (and rebuttals) levied against (and for) commodity index funds in recent U.S. Congressional testimonies. Then, additional empirical evidence is added regarding cross-sectional market returns and the relative levels of long-only index fund participation in 12 commodity futures markets. The empirical results provide scant evidence that long-only index funds impact returns across commodity futures markets. [source] Accounting for Employee Stock Options: What Can We Learn from the Market's Perceptions?JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT & ACCOUNTING, Issue 2 2010Emanuel Bagna The scope of this is paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the value relevance of employee stock options (ESOs) in Europe. We show, empirically, that the market participants when pricing a firm's equity place approximately the same valuation weights on the ESO -deferred compensation expense (the so called "ESO asset") and the compensation option liability (the so called "ESO liability"). Our empirical findings support the theoretical work of Ohlson and Penman who suggest that the deferred compensation expense be treated as a contra-liability. The second contribution of our work rests on the nature of the ESO expense. We show that the distinction between persistent and non-persistent ESO expenses is of critical importance for the market participants. Accordingly, an improved accounting disclosure should assist the investors in assessing the long-term goals of the ESO plans at the firm level. [source] Market Implications of the Audit Quality and Auditor Switches: Evidence from ChinaJOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1 2009Z. Jun Lin Independent audits enhance the credibility of corporate financial reports and assist investors to make rational decisions in the capital market. Nonetheless, the utility of the auditing function depends upon the quality of audits, which is determined by the independence and expertise of auditors. Hence, auditor choice and switch will not only affect an audit's quality, but will also influence decisions made by investors and other market participants. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how investors respond to the quality of audits and auditor switches in the Chinese context. Empirical results show that the quality of an audit and switching to a larger auditor have a positive (negative) impact on earnings response coefficients (ERCs) for firms with positive (negative) abnormal earnings. In contrast, switching to a smaller auditor has a negative (positive) impact on ERCs for firms with positive (negative) abnormal earnings. These results suggest that large auditing firms (Top 10) in China are perceived as more effective for curbing income-increased earnings management, which leads to higher (lower) ERCs for clients with positive (negative) abnormal earnings. Firms' switching to a larger auditor may signal high-quality earnings. Therefore, investors more often increase stock prices when firms have positive abnormal earnings and less often depreciate prices for negative abnormal earnings. Similarly, switching to a smaller auditor may signal lower earning quality, resulting in opposite market responses. In general, the empirical evidence suggests that audit information is valued by the capital market in China. Large auditing firms have been able to product-differentiate themselves within the Chinese stock market. [source] WEALTH EFFECT OF PUBLIC FUND INJECTIONS TO AILING BANKS: DO DEFERRED TAX ASSETS AND AUDITING FIRMS MATTER?,THE JAPANESE ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2007NOBUYOSHI YAMORI This paper examines the wealth effect on other banks by the public fund injection into Resona Bank. This paper finds that the injection initially conveyed the auditing firms' strict stance towards deferred tax assets. More importantly, the procedure that the government employed was regarded by market participants as a too-big-to-fail policy. Therefore, although the Resona injection was effective in obviating a financial crisis, the policy was inevitably accompanied with the moral hazard problem. [source] Real Options, Product Market Competition, and Asset ReturnsTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2009FELIPE L. AGUERREVERE ABSTRACT We study how competition in the product market affects the link between firms' real investment decisions and their asset return dynamics. In our model, assets in place and growth options have different sensitivities to market wide uncertainty. The strategic behavior of market participants influences the relative importance of these components of firm value. We show that the relationship between the degree of competition and assets' expected rates of return varies with product market demand. When demand is low, firms in more competitive industries earn higher returns, whereas when demand is high firms in more concentrated industries earn higher returns. [source] DYNAMIC ORDER SUBMISSION AND HERDING BEHAVIOR IN ELECTRONIC TRADINGTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010Wing Lon Ng Abstract I analyze the dynamic trading behavior of market participants by developing a bivariate modeling framework for describing the arrival process of buy and sell orders in a limit order book. The model contains an extended autoregressive conditional duration model with a flexible generalized Beta distribution to explain the duration process, combined with a dynamic logit model to capture the traders' order submission strategy. I find that the state of the order book as well as the speed of the order arrival have a significant influence on the order placement, inducing temporal asymmetric market movements. [source] An Analysis of Nonunderwritten Rights Offers: The Case of Closed-END FundsTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2002James A. Miles Abstract We study nonunderwritten rights offerings without subscription pre-commitments from large shareholders. The results indicate firms incur substantial indirect costs in the form of price concessions for raising equity capital this way. The data therefore support the selling cost explanation of the rights-offering paradox. Additionally, we describe how market participants collectively respond to intermediate such offerings. [source] Transitory real-time property rights and exchange intellectual propertyTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 9 2003Robert I. Webb American exchanges own the price quotations they generate. Access to real-time price information is highly valued by most market participants. This enables exchanges to exact royalties from the sale of such market information. In this sense, an exchange's ownership of its price quotations is akin to owning a property right in a perishable commodity (i.e., fresh market price quotations) that is most valuable for only a transitory or limited period of time. The implications of exchange ownership of price data extend beyond financial markets. Recently, Woodard (2000) has noted that some internet auction operators have asserted ownership over the prices they generate. This study reviews the legal origin and nature of the property right to price quotations generated on U.S. futures exchanges and assesses whether exchange ownership should be transitory. The legal basis for transitory real-time (real and personal) property rights is discussed and the economic implications are considered. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:891,913, 2003 [source] Foreign Bond Investment and the Yield Curve,ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2009Sangwon Suh Abstract Market participants have argued that the yield curve in the Korean bond market has been increasingly flattened since 2007 caused partly by foreign investors' rapidly growing investment in Korean bond market, motivated to take advantage of market imperfections seeking riskless profit making opportunities. To analyze how much foreign bond investments have affected the bond yields in Korea, in this paper I utilize a stylized affine term structure model that has an observable factor related with foreign bond investments as well as latent factors. I find supportive evidence for the argument by market participants that investment by foreigners has been an important factor behind the flattening of the yield curve since 2007. Taking out the effects of foreign bond investment on the yields, I observe much a weakened yield flattening phenomenon. [source] Is the Current Accounting Treatment of Education and Training Costs Appropriate?AUSTRALIAN ACCOUNTING REVIEW, Issue 3 2010James R. Frederickson This paper addresses the apparent disconnect between the economic consequences of firm-sponsored education and training and the accounting and disclosure treatment of those costs. Research suggests that firm-sponsored education and training enhances firm productivity and performance, yet accounting standards require firms to treat education and training costs as expenses. This study discusses not only the rationale for this accounting treatment, but also what firms and accounting standard setters can do to enhance the information provided to capital market participants about firm-sponsored education and training. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||