Bibliographic Record JÍLEK, Jiří. European Real Estate Investment Trusts: Analyzing Correlation with a DCC- GARCH Model. Prague, 2012. 50 p. Master thesis (Mgr.) Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies. Supervisor: Tomáš Jandík MA MSc MRICS. Abstract The main goal of this thesis is to study the interdependencies between returns of European real estate investment trusts (REITs) and other investment asset classes such as European equities, government bonds and commodities. The thesis is divided into two parts: in the first part, we describe the necessary background that led to the emergence of first REIT structures and also provide an overview of the European REITs market. In the second part, we apply the Dynamic Conditional Correlation GARCH (DCC-GARCH) model to examine correlations between the above mentioned asset classes. The general understanding of real estate is that it provides diversification benefits to a diversified portfolio. However, our results suggest that returns of European REITs and stocks show a relatively high correlation and more importantly, the correlation increases in time. These findings have significant implications for investors and portfolio managers who seek protection for their portfolios in time of market downturns. Our results...

The thesis deals with diversification of the activities of agricultural holdings. The purpose of diversification is to keep and also create new jobs in the rural areas, keep or even increase farm income and contribute to the recovery of the villages/rural communities. It may lead to the stabilization of the rural population, increase in quality of their lives and the competitiveness of agricultural holdings. Its main objective is to analyze extend and importance of diversification in the whole Czechia and also in the model area of ORP Kralovice. It also aims to determine the influence of diversification on the rural development and employment in the rural areas. Then it intends to evaluate the importance of diversification for concrete agricultural holdings in the model area and to find out which are the most common/frequent diversification activities. At first thesis defines the concept of diversification, its typology, motives for diversification and factors, which it affects. It describes the development of minor/affiliated production and diversification activities before and after 1989 in the specific environment of Czechia. The thesis also deals with the analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of non- agricultural activities. Finally the concept of diversification is...

Investing in commodities may have important benefits for investors but only in the last few decades have they started to think more about this possibility. Furthermore, large investors are more inclined to change their own personal view. Therefore, understanding the benefits that commodities could give to an investment portfolio might alleviate investors’ concerns. Several previous studies, as Belousova and Dorfleitner (2012) suggest, that the commodities with higher benefits are precious metals and gold, in particular. The purpose of our work is to understand which possible benefits are for equity investors and if they are common for certain commodities with different physical characteristics. The first part of our empirical work focuses on the main descriptive statistics of the return distribution (mean, variance, volatility, skewness, kurtosis and correlation) for 8 stock indices and 7 commodity futures. The main goal of this is to understand the differences among the commodities and between the commodities and the stock indices. In the second part of the empirical work, we test the safe-haven and the hedge properties of these commodities on a weekly basis for all of them with stock indices, and we do the same on a daily and monthly basis for only commodities which are negatively correlated on average with the stock indices. In the last part of our work, we combine these 7 commodities, following the principles of Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM), in order to create a well-balanced and well-diversified commodity index. Additionally, we create some mixed portfolios using this index and a different stock index every time. After that we look at the volatilities and the returns of these mixed portfolios with different weight combinations. Our main goals in this section are to understand the characteristics of the commodity index in comparison with stock indices and then, finding which weight combinations give the mixed portfolios the optimal risk-return trade off. Understanding which are efficient weights, can lead to conclusions about the weight that commodities should have in a portfolio according to the risk tolerance of the investors.  The research is done considering three time frequencies: daily, weekly and monthly; in line with the ones used by Baur and McDermott (2010). The sample size differs among these three different time basis. In fact, daily data started in January 2007 and the other two time frequencies data began with January 1997. All the time samples ended in March 2016. The results of the first part show that gold is the only commodity with a volatility similar to the stock indices (it also has a higher average return) and that on the daily, weekly and monthly basis. Whereas, the other commodities are much riskier than stock indices since they have higher volatility for all the three time-frequencies analyzed.  The results of the second part suggest that only gold is both a safe-haven and hedging commodity in line with the methodology used by Baur and McDermott (2010), but only for DAX 30 on a weekly basis. Furthermore, our results also show that natural gas is strong hedge in some cases such as natural gas for STI (Singapore) on a monthly basis or gold for Nikkei 225 on daily, weekly and monthly basis. Other commodities are neither safe-haven nor hedge in any case, except for silver which is a safe-haven commodity for DAX 30 and Sensex which at its worst, 1% and 5%, declines in the market respectively. The results of the last part of our work show that all the minimum variance mixed portfolios (the ones with the weights give the lowest risk) - made on a weekly basis - reduce the portfolio volatility and make the portfolio returns higher than the stock indices returns in 5 cases out of 8. Additionally, the results show how investors, who add a well-balanced and well-diversified commodity index to their portfolios, are able to observe several weight combinations and choose the one which suits their risk tolerance. Moreover, our results show that the optimal-weight combinations for commodity weights are lower than 0,5 only for FTSE 100 and S&P 500 (both values are 0,49) and higher than 0,62 but lower than 0,7 for DAX 30, Nikkei 225, Hang Seng, Sensex, SSEC. Furthermore, the optimal weight for STI is 0,54.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was signed into law on November 12, 1999. This act is regarded as the most influential deregulation for the U.S. financial services industry in the past one-century. The purpose of this study is to determine and analyze the wealth effects of the GLBA on U.S. and foreign banks and insurance companies. This dissertation is composed of four separate essays. In the first two chapters I investigate the wealth effects of the GLBA on domestic banks and insurance companies. I find that Money Center Banks followed by Super Regional Banks benefit most from this deregulation. I also find that banks with Section 20 investment subsidiaries benefit more than rest of the industry. For all types of banks exposure to systematic risk reduces following the enactment of the GLBA. In cross sectional analysis I find that banks size and change in exposure to systematic risk can explain the wealth effects at firm level. In the domestic insurance industry, property/casualty and life insurance companies have the highest wealth effect. Exposure to systematic risk also reduces for all types of insurance companies following the enactment of the GLBA. From cross sectional analysis I find that diversification opportunities and safeguards against excessive risk taking create value for property/casualty and all other (except life) insurance companies. I also test merger related hypothesis. The result shows that poor performing firms and larger firms gain more form this deregulation. In the third and fourth chapter I investigate the wealth effects of the GLBA on international banks and foreign insurance companies. I find that the events leading to the passage of the GLBA have significant negative wealth effects (spill-over effects) on the portfolios of banks and insurance companies for most of the developed countries I analyze. These effects are not same for any two countries. Most importantly I find that reduction in diversification opportunities for international banks and foreign insurance companies in the U.S. market can explain the wealth effects at firm level from the GLBA.

In the first chapter of this dissertation, I examine the relationship between hedging and diversification effects on CEO compensation in the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry. The REIT industry is suitable for this investigation for various reasons; primarily being that the REIT sample represents a relatively clean sample to study the effects of diversification and hedging on compensations. I find a positive and significant relationship between the interaction variable which reflects the effects of both hedging and diversification and CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity. This is consistent with the notion that managers are in a better position to manage firm risk if they use all the available tools and instruments, including hedging and diversification. I also find a positive and significant relationship between hedging and CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity, indicating that CEO compensation is more short term oriented because hedging is a relatively short term risk reduction strategy. The second chapter of this dissertation examines the relative contribution of regular and e-mini futures market to price discovery of EUR/USD futures contracts on the CME, using intraday data in 2010. The relative contribution to price discovery is estimated using the information share approach proposed by Hasbrouck (1995) and Gonzalo and Granger (1995). Empirical findings indicate that regular futures market accounts for approximately 66.5% of price discovery in the EURO/USD market. This study also examines if the regular future’s information share (IS) can be explained by the positioning of commercial and non-commercial traders. The results support the conclusion that the IS of regular futures can be better explained by non-commercial traders (speculators) than commercial traders (hedgers).

In the first chapter I investigate the change in operating performance, efficiency and value addition of US bank merger and acquisition after GLBA. I extend the previous research by combining all the previous methodology used in merger literature and added a new methodology namely Expected EVA improvement. I will test whether these performance metrics have similar results or the performance of merger vary depending on the measurements. I will also examine the factors that have significant impact on the change in the banks’ performance. My results show that industry-adjusted operating performance of merged banks increases significantly after a merger.I also find that the acquirer expected EVA improvement increase significantly after the merger. Revenue enhancement opportunity appears to be more profitable if there exist more opportunity for cost cutting such as geographic focus and diversified merger. Product diversification merger increase the industry adjusted performance more than product focused merger. The efficiency or profitability of targets has either positive or no effect change in acquirer performance. In the second chapter I examine how diversifying away from traditional lending activity into noninterest income has affected banks efficiency and value. Does this activity or product diversification affect the bank’s production efficiency and excess value? How does this efficiency translate into excess value for the firm or how excess value increase is related to diversification and efficiency? I find that diversifications significantly reduce the value of banks measured in excess value and vice versa regardless of which measures diversification or excess value I use. Both revenue and asset diversification also significantly reduce all measures of efficiency scores. But the impact of efficiency on diversification is mixed. Only efficiency scores computed based on variable return to scale have negative on revenue diversification and other efficiency scores have no impact on diversifications. I also find that increasing efficiency will increase the excess value of the banks significantly and vice versa. So increasing diversification will reduce the excess value and hence will lower the excess value or BHC with lower diversification will have lower excess value and are more efficient.

This dissertation consists of two essays. First essay investigates the implications of researcher data requirement on the risk-adjusted returns of firms. Using the monthly CRSP data from 1925 to 2013, we present evidence that firms which survive longer have higher average returns and lower standard deviation of annualized returns than the firms which do not. I further demonstrate that there is a positive relation between firms’ survival and average performance. In order to account for the positive correlation between survival and average performance, I model the relation of survival and pricing errors using a Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern joint distribution function and fit resulting the moment conditions to the data. Our results show that even a low correlation between firm survival time and pricing errors can lead to a much higher correlation between the survival time and average pricing errors. Failure to adjust for this data selection biases can result in over/under estimates of abnormal returns by 5.73 % in studies that require at least five years of returns data. Second essay examines diversification benefits of commodity futures portfolios in the light of the rapid increase in investor participation in commodity futures market since 2000. Many actively managed portfolios outperform traditional buy and hold portfolios for the sample period from January, 1986 to October, 2013. The evidence documented through traditional intersection test and stochastic discount factor based spanning test indicates that financializaiton has reduced segmentation of commodity market with equity and bond market and has increased the riskiness of investing in commodity futures markets. However, diversifying property of commodity portfolios have not disappeared despite the increased correlation between commodity portfolios returns and equity index returns.

Snakes represent an impressive evolutionary radiation of over 3,500 widely-distributed species, categorized into 515 genera, encompassing a diverse range of morphologies and ecologies. This diversity is likely attributable to their distinctive morphology, which has allowed them to populate a wide range of habitat types within most major ecosystems. In my first chapter, I provide the largest-yet estimate of the snake tree of life using maximum likelihood on a supermatrix of 1745 taxa (1652 snake species + 7 outgroup taxa) and 9,523 base pairs from 10 loci (5 nuclear, 5 mitochondrial), including previously unsequenced genera (2) and species (61). I then use this phylogeny to test hypotheses regarding heterogeneity in diversification rates and how this shaped overall patterns of snake diversity in Chapter 2. I also used the species-level phylogeny to test the evolution of habitat use in snakes, morphological variation, and whether distantly-related species exhibit morphological convergence in Chapter 3. Finally, in Chapter 4 I investigate how prehensile tails effect striking performance in arboreal snakes.

The electricity sector around the world is significantly changing towards the adoption of cleaner energy sources and its implementation through distributed generation technologies. The need to expand rural electrification to reduce energy poverty and the trends in decentralizing power generation are becoming major drivers of change. In Mexico, there are very few comprehensive studies on energy use and its impact on rural livelihoods. Energy studies in the development literature tend to analyze livelihoods that do not have access to modern energy services, and do not take into account that many rural communities, although connected to the grid, still may be considered energy poor. This research presents findings of current livelihood conditions of three rural communities in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, in the context of livelihood diversification and energy poverty. This paper also presents a feasibility study for the development of a community energy model that will fulfill energy and vegetable intake requirements for each community analyzed. Results show that these communities can potentially improve their livelihood conditions through the implementation of what this research calls a Community Integrated Sustainable Energy (CISE) model by reducing energy poverty and food insecurity. By adopting a CISE model, communities will become healthier by becoming supporters of energy conservation and energy efficiency strategies. The adoption of this community energy model will also encourage climate change mitigation by increasing resilience to vulnerable communities through enhancing food and energy security. The aim of this research is to inform stakeholders (including policy makers, urban planners, and community members themselves) of the current status of Chihuahua's communities and to start a dialogue in Mexico about engaging in a community-led, clean energy project that would generate electricity for those communities while preserving rural livelihoods.

[pt] Os estudos realizados no campo das finanças comportamentais demonstram que as decisões financeiras dos indivíduos não são elaboradas num contexto plenamente racional. Esta afirmação diverge dos modelos clássicos financeiros que utilizam a premissa de um agente econômico plenamente racional, o qual toma suas decisões de acordo com a curva de utilidade, buscando maximizar seu bem estar. Finanças comportamentais incorporam psicologia e sociologia para ampliar o conhecimento sobre o processo decisório dos indivíduos. Diversos trabalhos realizados neste campo de pesquisa evidenciam que as decisões financeiras também são construídas por agentes que possuem: otimismo demasiado, excesso de autoconfiança, aversão à perda e outros vieses comportamentais enraizados em nossa cultura. As grandes mudanças demográficas ocorridas nos últimos anos, destaque para a ampliação da expectativa de vida dos indivíduos, tem exercido uma enorme pressão sobre as estruturas previdenciárias. A principal tendência mundial para responder a estas mudanças demográficas tem sido a alteração de planos de beneficio definido para planos de contribuição definida. Esta modificação tem resultado num incremento de responsabilidade aos participantes, e uma das principais obrigações é a decisão de alocação dos seus investimentos. O objetivo deste trabalho é pesquisar os aspectos comportamentais destes indivíduos na tarefa de escolher os seus investimentos. A ocorrência de uma diversificação ingênua dos investimentos em previdência pode significar sérias dificuldades na aposentadoria dos participantes. Para verificar a ocorrência da diversificação ingênua na escolha de um plano de previdência foram encaminhados quatro questionários para grupos de indivíduos. Os testes realizados sobre as respostas evidenciaram a ocorrência de diversificação ingênua e também a utilização da estratégia 1/n, que significa a divisão dos investimentos em partes parecidas de acordo com o número de opções disponíveis. / [en] Behavioral finance researches indicate that individual financial decisions are not made based on a completely rational context. This assumption disagrees from the classical economic models that believe in a rational financial agent, which takes its decisions according to the utility curve to maximize its wealth. Behavioral finance incorporates psychology and sociology to better understand the individual process of decision. Different studies done in this field of research became evident that these kinds of decision are built up by agents that have excessively optimism, high self-confidence, aversion to losses and other aspects that are deep-rooted in our culture. Huge demographic changes in the past few years, specially the increase in life expectancy, impacted the pension plan structures. The main global trend to address these changes has been the movement to migrate from the defined benefit saving plans to defined contribution saving plans. As a result of this trend, we can observe an increase in the participants` responsibilities, with emphasis to the decision about the asset allocation. The objective of this research is to analyze the behavioral aspects of the individuals related to the task of asset allocation. The occurrence of a naïve diversification of investments in defined contribution saving plans can hardly affect the individual retirement. To verify this assumption, four different questionnaires were sent to different groups of individuals. Post Tests were ran to evince the occurrence of a naïve diversification of investments, as well as the use of 1/n strategy - divide savings in similar parts according to the amount of available options of investments.