Yuan, Jiang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-51). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Theoretical Literature --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Menu Cost Model --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Signal Extraction Model --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Monetary Search Model --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Empirical Literature --- p.8 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Inflation and Relative Price Variability in a Transitional Economy Evidence from China --- p.10 / Chapter 3.1 --- Data and Variables --- p.10 / Chapter 3.2 --- Inflation Decomposition --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3 --- Empirical Evidence --- p.14 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Inflation and RPV --- p.14 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Robustness --- p.18 / Chapter 3.4 --- Conclusion --- p.20 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Inflationary Regimes and Relative Prices --- p.22 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.22 / Chapter 4.2 --- The Change of Inflationary Regimes in China: 1978-2008 --- p.23 / Chapter 4.3 --- Inflationary Regimes and Relative Price --- p.25 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Preliminary Evidence --- p.25 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Empirical Evidence --- p.27 / Chapter 4.4 --- Structure Change --- p.32 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Endogenous Breakpoint Test --- p.32 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Test Results on the Changing Role of Expected Inflation --- p.33 / Chapter 4.5 --- Conclusion --- p.35 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Institutional Cost and Relative Price Variability --- p.36 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.36 / Chapter 5.2 --- "Institutional Cost, Price Adjustment, and Relative Price Variability in China" --- p.38 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Background --- p.38 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Institutional cost --- p.39 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- The relationship between institutional cost and relative price variability --- p.42 / Chapter 5.3 --- The Empirical Evidence --- p.43 / Chapter 5.4 --- Conclusion --- p.45 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Conclusion and Implications --- p.46 / Reference --- p.48

This Paper empirically investigates the behavior of Africa’s stock price volatility over time in ten African equity markets. It also attempts to establish the existence of a relationship between volatility and expected returns in the chosen equity markets. The effect of volatility on the stock prices is also investigated, together with establishing variations in the stock return volatility risk premia. Lastly, an investigation of whether volatility is transmitted from international markets to African markets is also undertaken. The sample period starts from November 1998 until December 2016. The preliminary empirical results show a mixed finding in the mean-variance tradeoff theory. Based on the GARCH-type models, the empirical results show that volatility of stock returns show the characteristics of volatility clustering, leptokurtic distribution and leverage effects over time for all the Africa equity markets. A weak relationship between volatility and expected returns is also found in all the African equity markets studied. The results also showed that as volatility increases, the returns correspondingly decrease by a factor of the coefficient for most of the equity markets. These results negate the theory of a positive risk premium on stock indices. It was also observed that stock return volatility risk premia have variations over time. The study also established that there was volatility transmission from the international markets into Africa equity markets. / MT2017

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Modern banking theories provide a host of explanations for the existence of intermediaries, highlight their important influence on economic growth, delineate the risks inherent in the services they provide, and illustrate the market failures and real costs of bank failures that precipitate the need for regulation and oversight of the sector. This thesis is a collection of three essays that looks at three of these key aspects of financial intermediaries - the development of financial intermediaries, the function of the lender of last resort that has emerged as an important part of the safety net afforded to financial intermediaries, and the occurrence of financial crises. The first chapter of this thesis provides an introduction to the academic literature on financial intermediation covering different theories put forward to explain their emergence, and highlighting the risks inherent in their operation. It emphasizes the crucial functions they perform in the economy and makes a case for regulation and oversight of the sector to reduce the incidence and alleviate the effects of financial crises. The second chapter seeks to determine the policy and institutional factors that influence the development of financial institutions as measured across three dimensions - depth, efficiency, and stability. Applying the concept of the financial possibility frontier, developed by Beck and Feyen (2013) and formalized by Barajas et al. (2013b), we determine key policy variables affecting the gap between actual levels of development and benchmarks predicted by structural variables. Our dynamic panel estimation shows that inflation, trade openness, institutional quality, and banking crises significantly affect financial development. We also assess the impact of the policy variables across the different dimensions of development thereby identifying complementarities and potential trade-offs for policy makers. The third chapter models the role of the lender of last resort (LoLR) in a general equilibrium framework. We allow for heterogeneous agents and a risk-averse banking sector, and incorporate the frictions of endogenous default, liquidity, and money. Adverse supply shocks in monetary endowments trigger default, leading to deterioration in the value of bank assets, and subsequent bank illiquidity in some states of the world. LoLR intervention is then assessed with regards to its economy-wide effect on welfare, bank profitability, and the level of default. The results provide a justification for constructive ambiguity. The fourth chapter aims to provide an explanation for the incidence of financial crises by combining insights from agency theory and Minsky's financial instability hypothesis (Minsky, 1992) in a model with endogenous default. Our theoretical model shows that the probability of a financial crisis increases as the quality of shareholder information decreases. We then develop a measure for the quality of shareholder information following Simon (1989) and show that the market-wide quality of shareholder information: i) is poor (with no trend) in the Pre-SEC period (1840 to 1934); ii) improves substantially following the SEC reforms; and iii) gradually declines starting in the 1960s/70s until it is now back to pre-SEC levels. This matches up with the standard list of US financial crises (as in Reinhart and Rogoff 2009; Reinhart 2010) and supports our hypothesis that the likelihood of a financial crisis increases with deterioration in the quality of shareholder information.

This thesis is a technical inquiry into remedies for high inflation. In its center there is the usual tradeoff between inflation aversion on the one hand and some benefit from inflation via Phillips curve effects on the other hand. Most remarkable and pioneering work for us is the famous Barro-Gordon model - see (Barro & Gordon 1983a) respectively (Barro & Gordon 1983b). Parts of this model form the basis of our work here. Though being well known the discretionary equilibrium is suboptimal the question arises how to overcome this. We will introduce four different models, each of them giving a different perspective and way of thinking. Each model shows a (sometimes slightly) different way a central banker might deliver lower inflation than the one shot Barro-Gordon game at a first glance would suggest. To cut a long story short we provide a number of reasons for believing that the purely discretionary equilibrium may be rarely observed in real life. Further the thesis provides new insights for derivative pricing theories. In particular, the potential role of financial markets and instruments will be a major focus. We investigate how such instruments can be used for monetary policy. On the contrary these financial securities have strong influence on the behavior of the central bank. Taking this into account in chapters 3 and 4 we come up with a new method of pricing inflation linked derivatives. The latter to the best of our knowledge has never been done before - (Persson, Persson & Svenson 2006), as one of very view economic works taking into account financial markets, is purely focused on the social planer's problem. A purely game theoretic approach is done in chapter 2 to change the original Barro-Gordon. Here we deviate from a purely rational and purely one period wise thinking. Finally in chapter 5 we model an asymmetric information situation where the central banker faces a trade off between his current objective on the one hand and benefit arising from not perfectly informed agents on the other hand. In that sense the central bank is also concerned about its reputation.

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Philosophy

by Lee Chi Kau. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-119). / Abstract also in Chinese. / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iv / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.vi / CHAPTER / Chapter ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter TWO --- THE LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.6 / Parametric Models / Nonparametric Estimation Techniques / Chapter THREE --- ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORKS --- p.21 / Parametric Models / Nonparametric Models / Chapter FOUR --- EMPIRICAL FINDINGS --- p.36 / Data / Estimation Results / Evaluation of Model Performance / Out-of-Sample Forecast and Evaluation / Chapter FIVE --- CONCLUSION --- p.54 / TABLES --- p.58 / ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.76 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.115

Lam Suet-man. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-117). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ACKNOWOLEDGMENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iv / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.vi / CHAPTER / Chapter ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter TWO --- REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE --- p.6 / Parametric Models / Nonparametric Estimation Techniques / Chapter THREE --- METHODOLOGY --- p.21 / Parametric Models / Nonparametric Models / Chapter FOUR --- DATA DESCRIPTION --- p.33 / Chapter FIVE --- EMPIRICAL FINDINGS --- p.39 / Estimation Results / Evaluation of Model Performance / Out-of-sample Forecast Evaluation / Chapter SIX --- CONCLUSION --- p.58 / TABLES --- p.62 / ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.97 / APPENDIX --- p.107 / BIBOGRAPHY --- p.111

The aim of this thesis is to estimate the volatility function of continuoustime stochastic models. The estimation of the volatility of the following wellknown international stock market indexes is presented as an application: Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard and Poor’s 500, NIKKEI 225, CAC 40, DAX 30, FTSE 100 and IBEX 35. This estimation is studied from two different perspectives: a) assuming that the volatility of the stock market indexes displays shortrange dependence (SRD), and b) extending the previous model for processes with longrange dependence (LRD), intermediaterange dependence (IRD) or SRD. Under the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), the compatibility of the Vasicek, the CIR, the Anh and Gao, and the CKLS models with the stock market indexes is being tested. Nonparametric techniques are presented to test the affinity of these parametric volatility functions with the volatility observed from the data. Under the assumption of possible statistical patterns in the volatility process, a new estimation procedure based on the Whittle estimation is proposed. This procedure is theoretically and empirically proven. In addition, its application to the stock market indexes provides interesting results.

This thesis is divided in four chapters. The two first chapters introduce a parametric quantile-based estimation method of univariate heavy-tailed distributions and elliptical distributions, respectively. If one is interested in estimating the tail index without imposing a parametric form for the entire distribution function, but only on the tail behaviour, we propose a multivariate Hill estimator for elliptical distributions in chapter three. In the first three chapters we assume an independent and identically distributed setting, and so as a first step to a dependent setting, using quantiles, we prove in the last chapter the asymptotic normality of marginal sample quantiles for stationary processes under the S-mixing condition.<p><p><p>The first chapter introduces a quantile- and simulation-based estimation method, which we call the Method of Simulated Quantiles, or simply MSQ. Since it is based on quantiles, it is a moment-free approach. And since it is based on simulations, we do not need closed form expressions of any function that represents the probability law of the process. Thus, it is useful in case the probability density functions has no closed form or/and moments do not exist. It is based on a vector of functions of quantiles. The principle consists in matching functions of theoretical quantiles, which depend on the parameters of the assumed probability law, with those of empirical quantiles, which depend on the data. Since the theoretical functions of quantiles may not have a closed form expression, we rely on simulations.<p><p><p>The second chapter deals with the estimation of the parameters of elliptical distributions by means of a multivariate extension of MSQ. In this chapter we propose inference for vast dimensional elliptical distributions. Estimation is based on quantiles, which always exist regardless of the thickness of the tails, and testing is based on the geometry of the elliptical family. The multivariate extension of MSQ faces the difficulty of constructing a function of quantiles that is informative about the covariation parameters. We show that the interquartile range of a projection of pairwise random variables onto the 45 degree line is very informative about the covariation.<p><p><p>The third chapter consists in constructing a multivariate tail index estimator. In the univariate case, the most popular estimator for the tail exponent is the Hill estimator introduced by Bruce Hill in 1975. The aim of this chapter is to propose an estimator of the tail index in a multivariate context; more precisely, in the case of regularly varying elliptical distributions. Since, for univariate random variables, our estimator boils down to the Hill estimator, we name it after Bruce Hill. Our estimator is based on the distance between an elliptical probability contour and the exceedance observations. <p><p><p>Finally, the fourth chapter investigates the asymptotic behaviour of the marginal sample quantiles for p-dimensional stationary processes and we obtain the asymptotic normality of the empirical quantile vector. We assume that the processes are S-mixing, a recently introduced and widely applicable notion of dependence. A remarkable property of S-mixing is the fact that it doesn't require any higher order moment assumptions to be verified. Since we are interested in quantiles and processes that are probably heavy-tailed, this is of particular interest.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished