This thesis investigates the use of commodity exchange traded funds (ETFs) as a price risk management tool for agriculture producers. The effectiveness of ETFs in hedging price risk will be determined by calculating optimal hedge ratios. This thesis will investigate the southeastern producer’s ability to hedge their price risk for corn, soybeans, live cattle and diesel fuel. Hedge ratios will be calculated using ordinary least squares (OLS), error correction model (ECM), and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) regression models. A utility maximization framework will be used to determine how transaction costs and risk aversion effect the optimal hedge ratio. The main finding is that ETFs provide producers with a reliable tool when hedging their output and input price risk. The presence of transaction costs decrease the effectiveness of an ETF hedge.

In September 1979, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued a statement entitled Financial Reporting and Changing Prices (FASB No. 33). FASB No. 33 requires publicly-held companies of a certain size to issue supplementary constant dollar and current cost disclosures along with their primary financial statements.To investigate the effect of the signals on security prices the study used a methodology known as "Iso-beta Portfolio Analysis" and employed different models in conjunction with the methodology, the market model (MM) and a new model called "the multi-index model" (MIM). Cluster analysis was used to develop the indexing used with the MIM.

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Yes / This paper examines the effect of textual risk disclosure on the amount of firm-specific information incorporated into share prices, as measured by stock price synchronicity, for Chinese listed firms during 2007-2011. We find that synchronicity is inversely associated with risk disclosure, suggesting that risk disclosure is firm specific and useful to investors. In addition, our results document that the usefulness of risk information is statistically and economically more pronounced among internationally oriented firms than their domestically oriented peers, consistent with the necessity for risk disclosure to be more meaningful when it relates to greater uncertainty. Finally, we find that internationally oriented firms tend to disclose more risk factors than their domestically oriented counterparts. Our findings are robust to a variety of specifications and the use of alternative measures of risk disclosure, stock price synchronicity and international orientation. Our paper has practical implications since its findings shed light on the current debate on whether or not narrative sections of annual reports convey useful information to investors.

As social scientists have become increasingly aware of the welfare implications of firms' locations in space there has been a considerable amount of renewed interest in the issues pertaining to the geography of price. In the short time since Hay and Johnston (1980) lamented the insufficient attention being given to the theoretical background of geographic pricing, there has been impressive amounts of progress in certain analytical areas. However, within this bulk of literature, we still know remarkably little about the determinants of geographic price variation in spatial markets containing numerous sellers (firms) and buyers (consumers). Perhaps this should not be surprising given that much of the current research is being carried out by economists (who generally tend to emphasize market process in classically constructed structural-conduct-performance modes) rather than geographers (who tend to emphasize market description and locational patterns/properties arising from spatially defined economic and behavioral market processes). This dissertation focuses on geographic price variations in competitive oligopolies, where firms react under alternative pricing conjectures/strategies. Using computer aided simulation, the analytics of equilibrium price levels are examined in one-dimensional bounded and unbounded markets to uncover the algebraic properties of spatial markets, the effects of firm density, firm location, and demand elasticity on prices, the perversities associated with consumer-related transportation costs, and the distorting effects of mixed or asymmetrical rivals' pricing strategies. The modeling of spatial price competition is regarded as essential in the evaluation of equilibrium price as a function of boundary complications, market description, and the spatial arrangement of interdependent rivals. Long-run implications of spatial price competition are discussed with the intention of developing a model (beyond the scope of this dissertation) that not only recognizes rivals' price reactions, but also stresses locationally competitive strategies. Some empirical evidence on the nature of spatial price dependence amongst rival food chains in a metropolitan area is also examined.

Existing studies document that institutional herding has a stabilizing effect on stock prices, as stock returns are positively correlated with herding over one- to three-quarter horizons. The literature also shows that short-term institutions are better informed than long-term institutions. Motivated by heterogeneity in the level of informed trading between short-term and long-term institutions, this study disentangles the herding effect of short-term and long-term institutions on stock prices. Our results show that herding by short-term institutions promotes price discovery. In contrast, herding by long-term institutions drives stock prices away from fundamentals. Taken together, our findings suggest that the stabilizing effect documented in the existing literature is mainly driven by short-term institutions, and herding by long-term institutions has a destabilizing effect on stock prices.

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