The abilities of life insurers can be divided and measured from various aspects. Through the use of structural equation modeling, we investigate the relations among solvency, operation ability and profitability in year 1994, 1995 and 1996. After within-year analysis and longitudinal data analysis, we found that operation ability has a positive influence on the size and income of life insurers and has a slight negative effect on the return on capital during these years. While the effect of solvency, asset risk and product risk on return on capital is not significant. / text

Thesis advisor: Ronnie Sadka / In the first essay of this dissertation, I study the impact that hedge fund manager connections have on investment ideas. I find that hedge fund managers who previously worked at the same prior hedge fund invest more similarly, hold more overlapping portfolios, and trade and overweight the same stocks relative to managers who do not share an employment connection. Overall, these results support theoretical prediction that networked managers share ideas that leads to price discovery for commonly held stocks. The second essay analyzes the role of ETFs in mutual fund families and is joint work with Caitlin Dannhauser. We study mutual fund and ETF twins - index funds from the same family that follow the same benchmark. We find that mutual fund twins have lower overall tax burdens while ETF twins have higher long-term yields and unrealized capital gains, but are compensated with lower expense ratios. Fund families benefit because twin offerings generate higher flows than their non-twin peers. These results support previous research that mutual fund families use diversification and subsidization to benefit the overall family. In the third essay, I study the use of latent factors in explaining hedge fund returns. Using an alternative latent factor estimator, asymptotic principal components (APC), I find explains more of the common variation of hedge fund returns on average and does so with greater efficiency than that found in the literature. I also identify an increase in the common variation across hedge fund excess return in the time-series via the extracted latent factors. My results suggest an impetus for future researchers to employ APC factors when characterizing hedge fund performance. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Os modelos de riscos proporcionais são muito utilizados na análise do tempo de sobrevivência, porém, assumem implicitamente que, observado um conjunto de variáveis explicativas, a população em estudo seja homogênea e que os indivíduos permaneçam sob risco durante todo o período de observação ou até que apresentem o evento de interesse. Tais suposições não são adequadas quando os indivíduos da população em estudo possuem diferentes pré-disposições ao surgimento de uma doença ou quando estão sujeitos à cura após o período de tratamento. Esta dissertação discute o modelo de sobrevivência com fração de cura quando o evento de interesse é caracterizado por fatores latentes competitivos, enquanto a heterogeneidade não observada entre os riscos dos pacientes é modelada através de um fator aleatório denominado termo de fragilidade. / Proportional hazards models are widely used in the analysis of survival time, however, it is implictly assumed that given a set of explanatory variables, the population under study is homogeneous and individuals remain at risk throughout the observation period time or until they have the event of interest. However, such assumptions are not reasonable when individuals from the population under study have dierent pre-dispositions to the emergence of a disease or are subject to the cure after treatment. This work discusses the cure fraction model when the event of interest is characterized by latent competitive factors, with patient risk modeled by a random factor called frailty.

A latent variable approach was used to (1) examine the relationship between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence, (2) compare the relationship between fluid intelligence and two measures of working memory capacity (complex span and n-back), (3) identify higher-order personality factors and (4) determine the relationship between higher-order personality factors, working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. Confirmatory factor analysis followed by structural equation modeling described the complex span and n-back as highly correlated yet distinct constructs. Consistent with previous research, both measures correlated highly with fluid intelligence. Four higher-order personality factors best modeled the structure of personality. Moreover, these four factors had differential relationship to cognitive constructs. The current research provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence, including discrepancies considering the magnitude of the relationship between two types of working memory measures and fluid intelligence, and finally, the influence of a diverse personality structure on working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. Importantly, the study examined these relationships on a broad scale using multiple tasks at a latent level contributing to better understanding of the nature of working memory capacity - fluid intelligence relationship and the influence of personality on higher-order cognition.

Os modelos de riscos proporcionais são muito utilizados na análise do tempo de sobrevivência, porém, assumem implicitamente que, observado um conjunto de variáveis explicativas, a população em estudo seja homogênea e que os indivíduos permaneçam sob risco durante todo o período de observação ou até que apresentem o evento de interesse. Tais suposições não são adequadas quando os indivíduos da população em estudo possuem diferentes pré-disposições ao surgimento de uma doença ou quando estão sujeitos à cura após o período de tratamento. Esta dissertação discute o modelo de sobrevivência com fração de cura quando o evento de interesse é caracterizado por fatores latentes competitivos, enquanto a heterogeneidade não observada entre os riscos dos pacientes é modelada através de um fator aleatório denominado termo de fragilidade. / Proportional hazards models are widely used in the analysis of survival time, however, it is implictly assumed that given a set of explanatory variables, the population under study is homogeneous and individuals remain at risk throughout the observation period time or until they have the event of interest. However, such assumptions are not reasonable when individuals from the population under study have dierent pre-dispositions to the emergence of a disease or are subject to the cure after treatment. This work discusses the cure fraction model when the event of interest is characterized by latent competitive factors, with patient risk modeled by a random factor called frailty.

Gesichterkognition ist eine wichtige Fähigkeit für soziale Interaktionen. Obwohl große interindividuelle Unterschiede in der Gesichterkognition festgestellt wurden, gibt es bisher wenige Bestrebungen, diese Fertigkeit zu trainieren. In den vorliegenden Studien habe ich Trainingsverfahren für das Gesichtergedächtnis und die Geschwindigkeit der Gesichterkognition entwickelt und untersucht, welche auf dem Modell von Wilhelm et al. (2010) beruhen. In Studie 1 wurden Trainingseffekte bei gesunden Probanden mittleren Alters behavioral untersucht. Das Training des Gesichtergedächtnisses zeigte einen Trend zur Leistungsverbesserung in der trainierten Aufgabe. Das Training der Geschwindigkeit der Gesichterkognition verkürzte signifikant die Reaktionszeiten in allen Geschwindigkeitsaufgaben der Gesichterkognition, der Objektkognition sowie der mentalen Geschwindigkeit. Daher wird angenommen, dass das Geschwindigkeitstraining eine allgemeine Fähigkeit, komplexe visuelle Stimuli zu verarbeiten, beeinflusst hat. In Studie 2 wurden nach einem Re-Training die psychophysiologischen Grundlagen der trainingsbedingten Veränderungen untersucht. Das Geschwindigkeitstraining verkürzte zwar die Reaktionszeiten im Verlauf des Re-Trainings, jedoch unterschieden sich die beiden Trainingsgruppen nicht im folgenden Posttest. Die Auswertung der ereigniskorrelierten Potentiale wies auf eine Reduktion der strukturellen Repräsentationen aus dem Langzeitgedächtnis zur Erkennung von Individuen (N250r) durch das Geschwindigkeitstraining und auf eine Verstärkung der semantischen Verarbeitung von bekannten Gesichtern (N400) durch das Gedächtnistraining hin. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt die Plastizität der Verarbeitungsgeschwindigkeit für komplexe visuelle Stimuli auf. / Face cognition is a crucial skill for social interaction. Large individual differences in face cognition have been shown for healthy adults, suggesting that there might be a need for improvement, yet training of this ability has seldom been attempted. In the present studies, I developed and tested training procedures for face memory and for speed of face cognition, based on the model developed by Wilhelm et al. (2010). In Study 1, training effects were studied with healthy middle-aged participants at the behavioural level. Both training procedures enhanced performance over the course of the training. For facial speed, this improvement was significant as were the faster reaction times on all tasks for facial speed, for object speed, and for general processing speed. Thus, training of facial speed influenced a more general ability to process complex visual stimuli more quickly. Study 2 was conducted to investigate the psychophysiological underpinnings of training effects after a re-training. The facial speed training enhanced performance over the course of the re-training. In the post-test conducted directly after the re-training, the two groups did not differ in reaction times. Results within event-related components suggested that the facial speed training reduced the contributions of structural representations from long-term memory to identity recognition (N250r) and that face memory training enhanced the semantic processing of familiar faces (N400). This dissertation demonstrates the plasticity of the speed of processing complex visual stimuli. The versatility of the results and the limitations of the studies are discussed along with suggestions for future research.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:58:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 5 Juliana_Inhazs.pdf.jpg: 19103 bytes, checksum: 3eae73777efe179efa4f61323cb6007a (MD5) Juliana_Inhazs.pdf.txt: 56465 bytes, checksum: 6aa6f5ecdab4f2116adba5b71f4a111d (MD5) license.txt: 4810 bytes, checksum: be830a7f281cc1281c4d014095a9ff87 (MD5) Juliana_Inhazs.pdf: 234479 bytes, checksum: 982e4b9180d265432c016715b7246a7c (MD5) 1_63070100005.pdf: 267678 bytes, checksum: 6e117ca7ccce2de984bce0f4cc915746 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-08-18T00:00:00Z / The term structure interest rate determination is one of the main subjects of the financial assets management. Considering the great importance of the financial assets for the economic policies conduction it is basic to understand structure is determined. The main purpose of this study is to estimate the term structure of Brazilian interest rates together with short term interest rate. The term structure will be modeled based on a model with an affine structure. The estimation was made considering the inclusion of three latent factors and two macroeconomic variables, through the Bayesian technique of the Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC). / A determinação da taxa de juros estrutura a termo é um dos temas principais da gestão de ativos financeiros. Considerando a grande importância dos ativos financeiros para a condução das políticas econômicas, é fundamental para compreender a estrutura que é determinado. O principal objetivo deste estudo é estimar a estrutura a termo das taxas de juros brasileiras, juntamente com taxa de juros de curto prazo. A estrutura a termo será modelado com base em um modelo com uma estrutura afim. A estimativa foi feita considerando a inclusão de três fatores latentes e duas variáveis ​​macroeconômicas, através da técnica Bayesiana da Cadeia de Monte Carlo Markov (MCMC).

This thesis focus on a yield curve modelling. It estimates unobserved "global" yield curve factors which drives changes in individual real yield curves. Yield curves of USD, GBP, JPY and EUR are considered and global factors are able to explain substantial part of their variances. The method is built on the Nelson-Siegel model which is implemented in a state-space form to be able to extract the unobserved yield factors. The estimated global yield factors are further used for explaining the evolution of the Czech yield curve. Their impact to the Czech yield curve is estimated in a time-varying regression which results show that the impact of the global factors is stronger during the years of the interventions of the Czech National Bank and thus suggests that the interventions help to transmit the global low interest rates to the Czech economy.

Submitted by ALEXANDRE CONCEICAO (alemgc@gmail.com) on 2017-09-14T01:37:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao-alexandre-conceicao.pdf: 2127579 bytes, checksum: 809d5da780c4b1ae1c60b356b8ef1fbf (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Thais Oliveira (thais.oliveira@fgv.br) on 2017-09-14T17:48:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao-alexandre-conceicao.pdf: 2127579 bytes, checksum: 809d5da780c4b1ae1c60b356b8ef1fbf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-15T12:16:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao-alexandre-conceicao.pdf: 2127579 bytes, checksum: 809d5da780c4b1ae1c60b356b8ef1fbf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-23 / Using dynamic factor models, one can analyse stocastic processes having multiple dimensions, that being the case on financial markets when considering the series formed by the stock prices. By using the model predictions it is possible to create trading strategies and measure their performance. With the closing prices of the stocks belonging to the IBX100 index from 2010 till 2016, the model parameters were estimated and trading strategies were proposed. The performance indicators of some strategies were superior than those of the IBOVESPA index on the given period of time, offering anualized returns of 27% and a 48% maximum drawdawn against 1.12% anualized return and 48% maximum drawdawn on the IBOVESPA. Therefore, those models are capable of capturing the price dynamic in such a way that their predictions can be used to create trading strategies having a performance higher than that of the IBOVESPA index. / O uso de modelos de fatores dinâmicos permite analisar processos estocásticos com grande número de dimensões, sendo exatamente esse o caso do mercado financeiro quando se consideram as séries formadas pelos preços de ações. Ao se utilizar as previsões feitas pelos modelos, é possível criar estratégias de trading cuja performance pode ser aferida. De posse dos preços de fechamento de ativos pertencentes ao IBX100 no período de 2010 até 2016, os parâmetros do modelo foram estimados e estratégias de trading foram propostas. Os indicadores de performance de algumas das estratégias superaram aqueles do índice IBOVESPA no período estudado, oferecendo retorno anualizado de até 27% e máximo drawdawn de 21%, contra um retorno de 1.12% e max drawdawn de 48% do IBOVESPA. Portanto, esses modelos são capazes de capturar a dinâmica dos preços de ações na medida em que suas previsões podem ser utilizadas para criar estratégias de trading com performance superior à do Índice IBOVESPA.

Cette thèse étudie quelques problèmes d’identification et d’estimation dans les modèles de survie bivariée, avec présence d’hétérogénéité individuelle et des facteurs communs stochastiques.Chapitre I introduit le cadre général.Chapitre II propose un modèle pour la mortalité des deux époux dans un couple. Il permet de distinguer deux types de dépendance : l’effet de deuil et l’effet lié au facteur de risque commun des deux époux. Une analyse de leurs effets respectifs sur les primes d’assurance écrites sur deux têtes est proposée.Chapitre III montre que, sous certaines hypothèses raisonnables, on peut identifier l’évolution jointe du risque d’entrer en dépendance et du risque de mortalité, à partir des données de mortalité par cohortes. Une application à la population française est proposée.Chapitre IV étudie la queue de distribution dans les modèles de survie bivariée. Sous certaines hypothèses, la loi jointe des deux durées résiduelles converge, après une normalisation adéquate. Cela peut être utilisé pour analyser le risque parmi les survivants aux âges élevés. Parallèlement, la distribution d’hétérogénéité parmi les survivants converge vers une distribution semi-paramétrique. / This thesis comprises three essays on identification and estimation problems in bivariate survival models with individual and common frailties.The first essay proposes a model to capture the mortality dependence of the two spouses in a couple. It allows to disentangle two types of dependencies : the broken heart syndrome and the dependence induced by common risk factors. An analysis of their respective effects on joint insurance premia is also proposed.The second essay shows that, under reasonable model specifications that take into account the longevity effect, we can identify the joint distribution of the long-term care and mortality risks from the observation of cohort mortality data only. A numerical application to the French population data is proposed.The third essay conducts an analysis of the tail of the joint distribution for general bivariate survival models with proportional frailty. We show that under appropriate assumptions, the distribution of the joint residual lifetimes converges to a limit distribution, upon normalization. This can be used to analyze the mortality and long-term care risks at advanced ages. In parallel, the heterogeneity distribution among survivors converges also to a semi-parametric limit distribution. Properties of the limit distributions, their identifiability from the data, as well as their implications are discussed.