This thesis investigates whether estimating the inputs of the Markowitz (1952) Mean- Variance framework using various econometric techniques leads to improved optimal portfolio allocations at the country, sector and stock levels over a number of time periods. We build upon previous work by using various combinations of conventional and Bayesian expected returns and covariance matrix estimators in a Mean-Variance framework that incorporates a benchmark reference, an allowable deviation range from the benchmark weights and short-selling constraints so as to achieve meaningful and realistic outcomes. We found that models based on the classical maximum likelihood method performed just as well as the more sophisticated Bayesian return estimators in the study. We also found that the covariance matrix estimators analysed created covariance matrices that were similar to one another and, as a result, did not seem to have a large effect on the overall portfolio allocation. A sensitivity analysis on the level of risk aversion confirmed that the simulation results were robust for the different levels of risk aversion.

Institutional investors have typically involved commercial property in their core portfolios for stable and income-oriented returns, particularly concentrated on low-risk traditional property sectors including office, retail and industrial property. Recent years have seen the strong growth in demand for quality commercial properties resulting in an imbalanced property investment market, with significant capital flows available (eg: growth in superannuation fund assets) for property investment from this increased appetite for commercial property. This has also been driven by some basic factors such as changing demographics. The demographic change has affected savings, investment and capital flows as the elderly prefer investments with the characteristics of higher yield and stability. Due to the ageing population, a compulsory superannuation system was introduced by the Australian government in 1992 which has driven significant increased capital flowing into investment markets. Since the increased capital flowed into investment markets with significantly compressed property yields, institutional investors have considered a range of emerging property sector investments such as self-storage, retirement, healthcare, and leisure properties to enhance the performance and provide diversification benefits in their portfolios. Specifically, recent years have also seen infrastructure emerge as a separate asset class for institutional capital, with the infrastructure asset class having distinctive characteristics and attractive features; particularly in a climate of significantly reduced government spending on infrastructure in most countries, as governments seek alternative funding options for infrastructure development and maintenance. However, only limited studies regarding the performance of the emerging property sectors and infrastructure investments have been conducted. As such, this PhD thesis focuses on both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the investment issues for the emerging property sectors and infrastructure. To provide a fuller view of the emerging property sectors and infrastructure, the empirical analysis in this thesis provided the performance assessments of Australian emerging property sector LPTs, US non-traditional REITs, UK direct leisure property, Australian infrastructure, US infrastructure and European infrastructure, as well as the strategic investment issues regarding emerging property sector and infrastructure investment via surveys with Australian emerging property sector LPT and infrastructure fund managers. With the development of an emerging property sector LPT index, the results of the empirical analysis indicate Australian emerging properties are characterised as higher risk-higher return property investments. The diversification benefit has been confirmed as adding emerging properties to an investment portfolio. The emerging property sector LPT fund managers’ survey has found new product diversity, strong performance, enhanced yield, greater choice of property and significant capital inflow available for property as the essential motivating factors for emerging property sector investment; whilst the quality and availability of data, the competition of emerging property investments/acquisitions, the depth of market and identifying reliable/strategic business partners, and the policy and regulation issues have been identified as the most significant risks in emerging property sector investment. For US non-traditional REIT analysis, self-storage REITs presented strong performance over the study period. The efficient frontier of portfolios consisting of self-storage REITs also presented enhanced efficiency, while healthcare and specialty REIT portfolios showed less significant efficiency. Due to no equivalent public emerging property series being available for UK, a direct leisure property total return series is obtained from IPD as the proxy of leisure property investment performance. Leisure property outperformed the other property sectors, as well as the other asset classes over the 26-year period to 2006. Similarly, the findings of the property portfolio and mixed-asset portfolio analyses suggest that adding leisure property to the UK property portfolios or mixed-asset portfolios has resulted in significant diversification gains. The findings of the infrastructure analyses have shown the consistent results of enhanced returns, lower risk and significantly improved diversification benefits by infrastructure investments over the three major infrastructure markets including Australia, US and Europe. With the rapidly expanding market in recent years, the strong performance and volatility of infrastructure investment has been moderate when the infrastructure markets are maturing. The Australian infrastructure fund managers’ survey has found stable cash flows, long duration, greater understanding of infrastructure, monopoly characteristics, inflation hedging and diversification benefits as the essential motivating factors for infrastructure investment; whilst infrastructure policy and over-valued infrastructure have been identified as the most significant risks in infrastructure investment. As the emerging property sectors and infrastructure are maturing as effective and significant investment vehicles in Australia and internationally, the issues assessed in this thesis taking on increased significance in the future. It is clearly evident that the property and infrastructure research in this thesis has lead to the enhanced understanding of alternative property and property-related assets and a fuller understanding of the investment dynamics of the emerging property sectors and infrastructure. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Techn. Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2006.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-38).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in Operations Research." Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-98).

This dissertation is a contribution to the pricing and portfolio choice theory in incomplete markets. It consists of three self-contained but interlinked essays. In the first essay, we present a utility-based methodology for the valuation and the risk management of mortgage-backed securities subject to totally unpredictable prepayment risk. Incompleteness stems from its embedded pre-payment option which affects the security's cash flow pattern. The prepayment time is constructed via deterministic or stochastic hazard rate. The relevant indifference price consists of a linear term, corresponding to the remaining outstanding balance, and a nonlinear one that incorporates the investor's risk aversion and the interest payments generated by the mortgage contract. The indifference valuation approach is also extended to the case of homogeneous mortgage pools. In the second essay, using forward optimality criteria, we analyze a portfolio choice problem when the local risk tolerance is time-dependent and asymptotically linear in wealth. This class corresponds to a dynamic extension of the traditional (static) risk tolerances associated with the power, logarithmic and exponential utilities. We provide explicit solutions for the optimal investment strategies and wealth processes in an incomplete non-Markovian market with asset prices modelled as Ito processes. The methodology allows for measuring the investment performance in terms of a benchmark and alter-native market views. In the last essay, we extend the forward investment performance approach to study the optimal portfolio choice problem in an incomplete market driven by jump processes. The asset price is modelled by a one-dimensional Lévy-Itô process. We prove the existence of a forward performance process by restricting the local risk tolerance functions to be time-independent and linear in wealth. This yields only three types of performance measurement criteria, namely, exponential, power and logarithmic. The optimal portfolios are constructed via stochastic feedback controls under these criteria. / text

Univ., Diss.--St. Gallen, 2004.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Passau, 2007. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. [127]-133).

Project (M.B.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2004. / Theses (Faculty of Business Administration) / Simon Fraser University. MBA-GAWM Program. Senior supervisor: Dr. Robert R. Grauer.

Thesis (M.Sc.(Actuarial Science)) -- University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.