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The purpose of the study was to determine the current attitudes of Indiana public school superintendents regarding futurology and its effect on selected school functions. Specifically, the purposes were to determine the attitudes of superintendents relative to the following research questions.1. What is the attitude of superintendents relative to the inclusion of current futurological knowledge at all grade levels in the public schools?2. What is the attitude of the superintendents relative to a systematic application of futurological knowledge in the design of staff development programs for teachers and administrators in the public schools?3. What is the attitude of superintendents relative to futurological knowledge as a potential effect on instructional methods in the public schools?4. What is the attitude of superintendents relative to futurological knowledge which can influence decisions of the superintendent?Methods and procedures used to determine the attitudes of the superintendents were a pilot study and a resulting questionnaire. The pilot study was constructed for purposes of arriving at relevant items of future-knowledge which were to be representative of educational futures as they were ;appearing in the literature. The resulting questionnaire was sent to all Indiana public school superintendents to obtain an assessment of their current attitudes regarding forty items of futurology as such items affected selected public school functions.The participating superintendents were asked to indicate on a scale, the point which most accurately described their current attitude toward a given item as depicted in the literature of educational futurism. Means of the percentages were calculated to determine the percent of superintendents having formed attitudes regarding each of the research questions. In addition, means of all responses were calculated to arrive at attitudes of superintendents regarding futurology and its effect on selected school functions.Conclusions of the study were:1. Almost all responding Indiana public school superintendents were aware of educational futurism as a phenomena which they were at least willing to perceive.2. Approximately one-fourth of the superintendents in Indiana did not have sufficiently strong beliefs and/or opinions about educational futurism to have formed attitudes regarding the phenomena.3. Three-fourths of the schools in Indiana are being administered by superintendents who have formed attitudes regarding the effects of futurology on school functions.4. A small number (3 percent) of the superintendents rejected all items of future-knowledge as they presented in the study.5. A large percentage of the student population in Indiana are attending schools under the leadership of superintendents who have attitudes formed about the effects of futurology on school functions.6. Two-thirds of the superintendents had formed attitudes to a high enough level that they could intelligently design preferable futures for school organization patterns.7. Three-fourths of the superintendents indicated they had formed attitudes regarding futurology and instructional methods at a high enough level permitting them to intelligently aid in the design of alternative teaching methodologies for the future.8. Three-fourths of the superintendents indicated they had formed attitudes about futurology and in-service training to a high enough level permitting them to intelligently aid in the design of alternative futures for structuring new staff development programs.9. A little less than three-fourths of the superintendents indicated they had formed attitudes regarding futurology and the decision-making process. The superintendents indicated by their responses that they could design preferable means for arriving at decisions.

We forecast US GDP sampled quarterly over horizons ranging from one quarter to three years. Using AR-MIDAS models we study three lag polynomials: the Almon lag, the exponential Almon lag and the beta lag, and nine macroeconomic variables, sampled weekly or monthly. Our benchmark model is an AR(1) and we compare forecast errors using RMSE. In all instances the AR-MIDAS achieves lower forecast errors compared to the benchmark model. The predictor sampled weekly generally performs better compared to other predictors, which are sampled monthly.

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In this thesis I study two fields of empirical finance: market integration and economic forecasting. The first two chapters focus on studying regional integration of Mexican and U.S. equity markets. In the third chapter, I propose the use of the daily term structure of interest rates to forecast inflation. Each chapter is a free-standing essay that constitutes a contribution to the field of empirical finance and economic forecasting. In Chapter 1, I study the ability of multi-factor asset pricing models to explain the unconditional and conditional cross-section of expected returns in Mexico. Two sets of factors, local and foreign factors, are evaluated consistent with the hypotheses of segmentation and of integration of the international finance literature. Only one variable, the Mexican U.S. exchange rate, appears in the list of both foreign and local factors. Empirical evidence suggests that the foreign factors do a better job explaining the cross-section of returns in Mexico in both the unconditional and conditional versions of the model. This evidence provides some suggestive support for the hypothesis of integration of the Mexican stock exchange to the U.S. market. In Chapter 2, I study further the integration between Mexico and U.S. equity markets. Based on the result from chapter 1, I assume that the Fama and French factors are the mimicking portfolios of the underlying risk factors in both countries. Market integration implies the same prices of risk in both countries. I evaluate the performance of the asset pricing model under the hypothesis of segmentation (country dependent risk rewards) and integration over the 1990-2004 period. The results indicate a higher degree of integration at the end of the sample period. However, the degree of integration exhibits wide swings that are related to both local and global events. At the same time, the limitations that arise in empirical asset pricing methodologies with emerging market data are evident. The data set is short in length, has missing observations, and includes data from thinly traded securities. Finally, Chapter 3, coauthored with John Maheu and Alex Maynard, studies the ability of daily spreads at different maturities to forecast inflation. Many pricing models imply that nominal interest rates contain information on inflation expectations. This has lead to a large empirical literature that investigates the use of interest rates as predictors of future inflation. Most of these focus on the Fisher hypothesis in which the interest rate maturity matches the inflation horizon. In general, forecast improvements have been modest. Rather than use only monthly interest rates that match the maturity of inflation, this chapter advocates using the whole term structure of daily interest rates and their lagged values to forecast monthly inflation. Principle component methods are employed to combine information from interest rates across both the term structure and time series dimensions. Robust forecasting improvements are found as compared to the Fisher hypothesis and autoregressive benchmarks.

Graduation date: 1988

Thesis (MEducation)--University of South Australia, 2000.