This bachelor thesis examines the convergence properties of inflation rates of the Euro-pean Monetary Union (EMU) countries over the period 1992 to 2007. The period can be naturally split into two periods, according to the Maastricht Treaty and the introduction of the Euro. Since countries were striving to meet the Maastricht inflation criterion for 1997 we will analyse inflation behaviour of the pre-Euro period (1992 to 1997) and post-Euro period (1998 to 2007), in order to see whether each country’s inflation rates have con-verged to the calculated mean of the sample. To analyse the issue we used CPI inflation rate data from IMF Statistical Database over the period 1992 to 2007. We study convergence by means of ADF unit-root tests, Engle-Granger cointegration tests and Johansen cointegration tests. These are complemented with descriptive statistics that measure dispersion of inflation rates within the EMU. The conclusion to the research problem can be summaries as follows: Our analysis pre-sents clear evidence of reduction in inflation rate dispersion for the period 1992 to 1997, indicating that the Maastricht Treaty had a major impact on the convergence of inflation rates within the EMU for that period. However, we found that only two countries, Austria and Portugal, had a cointegration relationship with the average rate of inflation of the other countries in the sample. For the period 1998 to 2007, the descriptive statistics indicated that the introduction of the Euro resulted in a divergence of inflation rates within the EMU. Those results were further strengthened by the fact that no cointegration relation-ship was found for that period.

Statistically speaking, only between 4% and 6% individuals can afford to retire comfortably. When this fact is combined with changes such as a longer life expectancy, disintegration of family life and increasing pressure on public resources to deal with issues such as aids, the increasing need for personal financial planning for retirement becomes clear. Firstly, a framework was set of requirements which need to be met with regard to financial planning for retirement. This includes the need to diversify the portfolio (as a method to manage the acceptable risk level), as well as principles and techniques relating to diversification. The possibility of using the services of a financial planner to aid with the retirement planning, as well as aspects to be considered in this regard were discussed. It was also demonstrated that a variety of aspects should be considered when deciding on an investment, including market expectations, general economic conditions and the investor's own research, all within a long-term framework. The final aspect considered as part of the framework, was tax. Having set the framework for successful financial retirement planning in Chapter two, a number of pitfalls to be avoided were addressed in Chapter three. These included the investor's planned annual cost of living, since this is the single most important factor which will determine standard of living during retirement. The planned age at which the individual wishes to retire specifically also needs to be taken into account, seeing that this determines the amount of time he has to build up his investment. The planned rate of return on the investment has to be realistic, but also has to at least keep up with inflation. The effect of inflation could also for example mean that adequate present planning may fall short in 20 years' time. A final aspect to be considered is the importance of taking unforeseen events, such as a potential medical disability, into account. Having set the framework of factors to be taken into account, specific investment options were addressed in the main categories of equity, bonds, property and cash, as well as a pension find, provident fund and/or retirement annuity. Less traditional options such as collector's items, financial instruments or the option to start one's own business were also addressed in more detail. Finally, a questionnaire was addressed to professional people, as represented by auditors in the Northwest Province, with the view to determine the current level of retirement planning and whether or not their expectations matched the theoretic framework as discussed in the previous chapters. Suggestions were made as per the results of the questionnaire by linking the results of the questionnaire and the theoretical framework. Gaps were also highlighted, for instance that very few people as per the sample plan to fully retire, and this changing understanding of "retirement" is not fully captured by current literature. It also seems that professional persons, as per the questionnaire, have an over optimistic view regarding their retirement and funds needed during retirement. / Thesis (M.Com. (Business and Management Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The Zero-Coupon Inflation Indexed Swap (ZCIIS) is a derivative contract through which inflation expectations on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) are actively traded in the US. In this thesis we consider different ways to use the information from the ZCIIS market for modeling forward inflation in a risk-neutral framework. We choose to implement a model using a Monte Carlo methodology that simulates the evolution of the forward CPI ratio. We prefer this approach for its flexibility, ease of implementation, instant calibration to the ZCIIS market and intrinsic convexity adjustment on the inflation-linked payoff. Subsequently, we present a series of results we obtain when modeling a chain of consecutive CPI ratios for simulating the evolution of spot inflation. Furthermore, we use this for pricing inflation caplets and floorlets. Finally, we use the intuition gained from this exercise to analyse our results for pricing inflation caps.

No description available.

This work aims to understand how cosmic inflation embeds into larger models of particle physics and string theory. Our work operates within a weakened version of the Landscape paradigm, wherein it is assumed that the set of possible Lagrangians is vast enough to admit the notion of a generic model. By focusing on slow-roll inflation, we examine the roles of both the scalar potential and the space of couplings which determine its precise form. In particular, we focus on the structural properties of the scalar potential, and find a surprising result: inflection point inflation emerges as an important —and under certain assumptions, dominant — possibility in the context of generic scalar potentials. We begin by a systematic coarse graining over the set of possible inflection point inflation models using V.I. Arnold’s ADE classification of singularities. Similar to du Val’s pioneering work on surface singularities, these determine structural classes for inflection point inflation which depened on a distinct number of control parameters. We consider both single and multifield inflation, and show how the various structural classes embed within each other. We also show how such control parameters influence the larger physical models in to which inflation is embedded. These techniques are then applied to both MSSM inflation and KKLT-type models of string cosmology. In the former case, we find that the scale of inflation can be entirely encoded within the super- potential of supersymmetric quantum field theories. We show how this relieves the fine-tuning required in such models by upwards of twelve orders of magnitude. Moreover, unnatural tuning between SUSY breaking and SUSY preserving sectors is eliminated without the explicit need for any hidden sector dynamics. In the later case, we discuss how structural stability vastly generalizes — and addresses — the Kallosh-Linde problem. Implications for the spectrum of SUSY breaking soft terms are then discussed, with an emphasis on how they may assist in constraining the inflationary scalar potential. We then pivot to a general discussion of the FLRW-scalar phase space, and show how inflection points induce caustics — or dynamical fixed points — amongst the space of possible trajectories. These fixed points are then used to argue that for uninformative priors on the space of couplings, the likelihood of inflection point inflation scales with the inverse cube of the number of e-foldings. We point out the geometric origin for the known ambiguity in the Liouville measure, and demonstrate of inflection point inflation ameliorates this problem. Finally we investigate the effect of the fixed point structure on the spectrum of density perturbations. We show how an anomaly in the Cosmic Mircowave Background data — low power at large scales — can be explained as a by product of the fixed point dynamics.

No description available.

This thesis examines the predictive ability of models for forecasting inflation and financial market volatility. Emphasis is put on evaluation of forecasts and the usage of large data sets. Variety of models are used to forecast inflation, including diffusion indices, artificial neural networks, and traditional linear regressions. Financial market volatility is forecast using various GARCH-type and high-frequency based models. High-frequency data are also used to obtain ex-post estimates of volatility, which is then used to evaluate forecasts. All forecast are evaluated using recently proposed techniques that can account for data snooping bias, nested, and nonlinear models.

The international Fisher effect is identified as part of the four-way equivalence model. This model outlines a relationship between exchange rates, interest rates and inflation rates. The international Fisher effect, specifically, states that the difference in interest rates between two countries is an indicator of the expected change in exchange rates of their currencies. The aim of this paper is to test the validity of the international Fisher effect between South Africa and the UK. The understanding of the exchange rate movements is vital for management decisions, investment activity and policy making for central banks and government. Data has been collected for a sampling period beginning in July 1995 and ending in April 2001. Interest rates in the UK and South Africa are recorded for this period. A record of exchange rate movements for the same period has also been compiled. Using this data, a simulation of an uncovered interest arbitrage was carried out. This was done by taking £100 from the UK, converting it to Rands and investing those Rands in a South African bank. At the same time, £100 was also invested in a UK bank. As interest accrued over the test period, interest rates in both countries changed, exchange rates fluctuated and the balance in the South African account was compared to the balance in the UK account. According to the model, the real balances in both the accounts should remain equivalent over the sampling period. It was found that interest rates in SA were higher, more volatile and less cyclic than those in the UK. As predicted by the model, the exchange rate (in R/£) constantly increased over the sampling period. Reasons for the higher interest rates in SA include a low national savings rate, high inflation, the South African economies vulnerability to events in the international market and the reserve bank's monetary policies. The simulated arbitrage was found to be profitless and the balances of the two simulated investment accounts were found to be statistically similar. There were, however, some short term deviations from the theory. The value of the SA account was lowest during times of high interest rates in SA, when there was volatility in the forex market and when the exchange rate was at peaks in the cycle. Nevertheless, the exchange rate - interest rate relationship always returned to equilibrium. The risk and unpredictability associated with the international market is high while only small chances exist to achieve economic gain from borrowing from low interest rate environments (or investing in countries where the interest rates are high). It was concluded that the international Fisher effect, between the UK and South Africa, for the period studied, had significant short term deviations but is valid over the medium term. The implication for business practice is that stakeholders should be conservative when faced with risk associated with foreign exchange exposure unless, as is the case with speculators, it is their core competence to predict macroeconomic trends and profit from beating the market. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

The topic of this thesis is about cosmic inflations, including the early-universe inflation that seeds the initial inhomogeneities of our universe, and the late-time cosmic acceleration triggered by dark energy. The two inflationary epochs have now become part of the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model. In the standard paradigm, dark energy is a cosmological constant or vacuum energy, while the early-universe inflation is driven by a slowly rolling scalar field. Currently the minimal $\Lambda$CDM model with six parameters agrees well with cosmological observations. If the greatest achievement of the last twenty golden years of cosmology is the $\Lambda$CDM model, the theme of future precision cosmology will be to search for deviations from the minimal $\Lambda$CDM paradigm. It is in fact expected that the upcoming breakthroughs of cosmology will be achieved by observing the subdominant anomalies, such as non-Gaussianities in the Cosmic Microwave Background map. The aim of this thesis is then to make theoretical predictions from models beyond $\Lambda$CDM, and confront them with cosmological observations. These models include: 1) a new dark energy parametrization based on quintessence models; 2) reconstructing early-universe inflationary trajectories, going beyond the slow-roll assumption; 3) non-Gaussian curvature fluctuations from preheating after the early-universe inflation; 4) infra-red cascading produced by particle production during inflation; 5) preheating after Modular inflation; 6) decaying cold dark matter. We update the cosmological data sets -- Cosmic Microwave Background, Type Ia supernova, weak gravitational lensing, galaxy power spectra, and Lyman-$\alpha$ forest -- to the most current catalog, and run Monte Carlo Markov Chain calculations to obtain the likelihood of parameters. We also simulate mock data to forecast future observational constraints.

The topic of this thesis is about cosmic inflations, including the early-universe inflation that seeds the initial inhomogeneities of our universe, and the late-time cosmic acceleration triggered by dark energy. The two inflationary epochs have now become part of the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model. In the standard paradigm, dark energy is a cosmological constant or vacuum energy, while the early-universe inflation is driven by a slowly rolling scalar field. Currently the minimal $\Lambda$CDM model with six parameters agrees well with cosmological observations. If the greatest achievement of the last twenty golden years of cosmology is the $\Lambda$CDM model, the theme of future precision cosmology will be to search for deviations from the minimal $\Lambda$CDM paradigm. It is in fact expected that the upcoming breakthroughs of cosmology will be achieved by observing the subdominant anomalies, such as non-Gaussianities in the Cosmic Microwave Background map. The aim of this thesis is then to make theoretical predictions from models beyond $\Lambda$CDM, and confront them with cosmological observations. These models include: 1) a new dark energy parametrization based on quintessence models; 2) reconstructing early-universe inflationary trajectories, going beyond the slow-roll assumption; 3) non-Gaussian curvature fluctuations from preheating after the early-universe inflation; 4) infra-red cascading produced by particle production during inflation; 5) preheating after Modular inflation; 6) decaying cold dark matter. We update the cosmological data sets -- Cosmic Microwave Background, Type Ia supernova, weak gravitational lensing, galaxy power spectra, and Lyman-$\alpha$ forest -- to the most current catalog, and run Monte Carlo Markov Chain calculations to obtain the likelihood of parameters. We also simulate mock data to forecast future observational constraints.