Abstracting from potential incentive costs, both theoretical and applied research on contracts and contract choice suggest that bundling multiple contracts may be optimal. With the abundance of risk and uncertainty, especially among low-income environments that are often ill-prepared, the design and commercial success of contracts for mitigating these risks remain crucial. This dissertation brings together applied microeconomic theory along with careful empirical analyses to study three issues about contracts and risks, with implications for the functioning of markets, financial inclusion, unequal impacts of climate extremes and the design of insurance and financial contracts aim at mitigating environmental risks that confront society. Chapter 2 studies the potential moral hazard and welfare consequences of interlinking credit with insurance market contracts, establishing that interlinking these two markets not only increases insurance demand, but induces large moral hazard effects in develop- ing countries. Chapter 3 examines environmental risks and their differential impacts on human capital investments, specifically, documenting how Harmattan-induced “Meningitis” outbreaks potentially explain the observed gender gaps in educational attainments in Niger. Chapter 4 evaluates the impact of informal risk-sharing schemes on the adoption of “index” insurance contracts aimed at mitigating climate risks among low-income societies. Two com- peting forces are identified to show that informal network schemes have ambiguous effect on the demand for formal index insurance, which provides novel explanations for two empirical puzzles about index contracts along with an experimental evidence from rural India. The third project connects the first two via contracts and environmental risks, respectively.

This dissertation aims to investigate the asset pricing implications of the stock option's implied volatility term structure. We mainly focus on two directions: the volatility term structure of the market and the volatility term structure of individual stocks. The market volatility term structure, which is calculated from prices of index options with different expirations, reflects the market's expectation of future volatility of different horizons. So the market volatility term structure incorporates information that is not captured by the market volatility itself. In particular, the slope of the volatility term structure captures the expected volatility trend. In the first part of the thesis, we investigate whether the market volatility term structure slope is a priced source of risk or not. We find that stocks with high sensitivities to the proxies of the VIX term structure slope exhibit high returns on average. We further estimate the premium for bearing the VIX slope risk to be approximately 2.5% annually and statistically significant. The effect cannot be explained by other common risk factors, such as the market excess return, size, book-to-market, momentum, liquidity and market volatility. We extensively investigate the robustness of our empirical results and find that the effect of the VIX term structure risk is robust. Within the context of ICAPM, the positive price of VIX term structure risk indicates that it is a state variable which positively affects the future investment opportunity set. In the second part of the thesis, we provide a stylized model that explains our empirical results. We build a regime-switching rare disaster model that allows disasters to have short and long durations. Our model indicates that a downward sloping VIX term structure corresponds to a potential long disaster and an upward sloping VIX term structure corresponds to a potential short disaster. It further implies that stocks with high sensitivities to the VIX slope have high loadings on the disaster duration risk, thus earn higher risk premium. These implications are consistent with our empirical results. In the last part, we study the relationship between individual stock's volatility term structure and the stock's future return. We use a measure of stock's implied volatility term structure slope, defined as the difference between 3-month and 1-month implied volatility from at-the-money options, to demonstrate that option prices contain important information for the underlying equities. We show that option volatility term structure slopes are significant in explaining future equity returns in the cross-section. And we further find evidence that the implied volatility term structure is a measure of event risk: firms with the most negative volatility term structure are those for which the market anticipates news that may affect stock price within one month. Relevant events include, but are not limited to, earnings announcements.

Orientadores: Raul Vinhas Ribeiro, Antonio Carlos Moretti / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T22:13:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Quinzani_CeciliaMorais_M.pdf: 890601 bytes, checksum: 304bbc7988e7df635b107fc3346436b3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: O desenvolvimento das áreas tradicionais da engenharia tem sido caracterizado pelo crescente emprego de modelos de otimização como paradigmas para problemas de tomada de decisão. Quando estes modelos possuem mais de um objetivo são chamados de Problemas de Otimização Multiobjetivo (POM) e uma alternativa apropriada na resolução deste tipo de problema é a utilização de Algoritmos Evolutivos. Os Algoritmos Evolutivos (AE) simulam o processo de evolução natural. Simplificadamente, o conjunto de soluções candidatas (população) sobre o qual operam as metodologias é modificado utilizando dois princípios básicos de evolução: seleção e variação. O objetivo principal desta dissertação consiste na análise da aplicação de Algoritmos Evolutivos na otimização multiobjetivo de portfólios onde o importante é obter uma correlação ótima entre retorno e risco. Diversos algoritmos evolutivos foram analisados na dissertação, sendo também analisadas versões híbridas dos mesmos. A principal contribuição da dissertação é a proposta de um procedimento de refinamento das soluções que se baseia no comportamento da série histórica para gerar uma população inicial mais adequada. Uma comparação do desempenho dos diferentes algoritmos híbridos com e sem este refinamento da solução foi realizada e o algoritmo com melhor desempenho foi identificado / Abstract: The development of traditional areas of engineering has been characterized by the increasing use of optimization models as paradigms for decision making problems. when these models have more than one objective, they are called multi-objective optimiation problems (POMs), and are a suitable alternative in solving this kind of problem is the usage of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs). The EAs simulate the process of natural evolution. Briefly, the set of candidate solutions (population) in which the methodologies operate is modified using two basic principles of evolution: selection and variation. The main objective of this dissertation is to review the application of Evolutionary Algorithms in Multiobjective optimization of portfolios in which it is important to obtain an optimal correlation between return and risk . Several evolutionary algorithms have been analyzed in the dissertation, and also analyzed hybrid versions of the same. The main contribution of the dissertation is to propose a procedure for the refinement of solutions based on the behavior of the series to generate a better initial population. A comparison of the performance of different algorithms hybrids with and without this refinement of the solution was performed and the algorithm with best performance was identified / Mestrado / Automação / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

The dissertation thesis deals with valuation of individual items in the economic balance sheet of a stand-alone company and subsequently as a part of acquisition. We define the economic balance sheet as a full set of assets, liabilities as well as synergies amongst the assets (stand-alone company view) and companies (transaction view), where the sum of their individual valuations has to equal to the overall value of the company. Hence we suggest that the management (and a valuer) should be able to decompose the company value into defined and controllable value components. Apart from identifying optimal methods for the individual valuation, the key for achieving this task is the internal (amongst the assets) as well as the overall consistency (vis-a-vis the overall company value). Compared to the overall-valuation approach, we demonstrate how the component approach can lead to more precise results, higher management discipline and accountability, and can serve as a tool for an a priori identification of overpayment as well as an instrument for controlling the value post transaction. We defined two primary types of synergies in terms of valuation approach - Enhancement, improving current income potential and Future opportunities, mainly focusing on new projects - and proposed appropriate valuation approaches given their specifics. Since a large proportion of valuations on individual level is based on the income approach, setting a clear and consistent approach to discount rates was a vital part of the work. We propose a primary and, if not available, second-best rate for each component of the economic balance sheet. Although the synergies are probably of the highest commercial interest, the liabilities with external source of risk and deferred taxes on the individual level are areas generally neglected both by academics and practitioners. While the first one will have only but crucial impact on companies with decommissioning and similar liabilities, the latter is present almost in any itemized valuation, and its incorrect or purely isolated application affects the overall result and breaks the link to the overall company value. We analyze both topics and offer consistent valuation methods, although further research is required to refine them. We discuss WARA as one of the key tools for ensuring consistency of itemized valuation of the economic balance sheet. Lacking any theoretical background and interest from academic researchers, we first analyze simple concepts of the tool as they are used in practice and point out observed conceptual errors, oversimplifications and accounting-only approach. Not only that we propose complex consistent rules for WARA construction but we extend the concept from the focus on conventionally defined net assets to the full economic balance sheet, which is the only way how to relate the itemized valuation to the overall company valuation. Finally, we presented a case study based on real-life example which demonstrated practical applicability of proposed partial solutions as well as the overall approach to achieving consistency with the total company or transaction valuation. Although the analysis of individual items of the economic balance will be inevitably based on subjective assumptions to an extent, we have shown that proposed complex and consistent approach adds value to the strategic and transaction considerations. Also the preciseness of the tools will increase with the number of transactions performed as the parameters get calibrated.