Choi Tsz Wang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-45). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Review of Structural Models --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Merton model --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- The default barrier model of Black and Cox --- p.7 / Chapter 3 --- Estimating the Merton model --- p.10 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Variance Restriction (VR) method --- p.10 / Chapter 3.2 --- The Maximum Likelihood estimation (ML) method --- p.12 / Chapter 3.3 --- Comparison between VR and ML methods --- p.13 / Chapter 4 --- Implications of Using the Proxy in Default Barrier Estimation --- p.15 / Chapter 4.1 --- Rejection of SC framework --- p.16 / Chapter 4.2 --- Positive barrier implication --- p.17 / Chapter 4.3 --- Barier over debt implication --- p.17 / Chapter 4.4 --- Numerical illustration --- p.19 / Chapter 5 --- The Proposed Framework --- p.22 / Chapter 5.1 --- Maximum likelihood estimation --- p.23 / Chapter 5.2 --- Barrier-to-debt ratio specification --- p.25 / Chapter 5.3 --- Simulation checks --- p.26 / Chapter 5.4 --- Comments on the performance of α --- p.29 / Chapter 6 --- Estimation with Empirical Data --- p.33 / Chapter 6.1 --- Description of data --- p.33 / Chapter 6.2 --- Empirical results --- p.35 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusion --- p.41 / References --- p.43

This thesis consists of two essays on applied microeconomics issues. The first essay presents a hedonic price econometric model of vacant commercial land. The second essay presents cost frontier analysis on the industry and firm's performance of the U.S. Motor Carrier industry. Our hedonic price econometric model includes two new developments in estimating land values in a multicentric urban area First, two composite indexes of market accessibility and highway accessibility are developed to account for the impacts of different characteristics of different regional nodes on land value at a particular site. Second, we use nonlinear least squares to estimate the decay parameters of the accessibility indexes within the model. We found that market accessibility is the dominant land value determinant. The estimated market accessibility decay parameter is different in value from the ones that are commonly assumed in hedonic models. The effect of access to highway interchanges is insignificant. Corner lots are of higher value. Finally, under Seattle's zoning policy, zoning classification of neighborhood commercial and community commercial land does not have significant effect on land value. The second essay uses the stochastic cost frontiers to analyze the performance of the U.S. motor carrier industry in the pre- and post-MCA periods. The average industry inefficiencies were between 14 and 27 percent during studied period. Our results indicate that the deregulation has no impact on industry efficiency. After a short adjustment period, the average industry inefficiency in the post-MCA years falls back to its pre-MCA level of around 14 to 16 percent. We analyzed the firm-specific inefficiencies by tobit regression. Our result shows that union firms are 1.5 and 4 percent less efficient than non-union firms in the pre- and post-MCA years, respectively. Firms located in the southern region are relatively efficient and the ones in the northern regions are relatively inefficient. Our result supports Stigler's Survivor Principle that survivor firms are relatively efficient. / Graduation date: 1998

The main objective of this thesis is to simulate, evaluate and discuss three standard methodologies of calculating Value-at-Risk (VaR) : Historical simulation, the Variance-covariance method and Monte Carlo simulations. Historical simulation is the most common nonparametric method. The Variance-covariance and Monte Carlo simulations are widely used parametric methods. This thesis defines the three aforementioned VaR methodologies, and uses each to calculate 1-day VaR for a hypothetical portfolio through MATLAB simulations. The evaluation of the results shows that historical simulation yields the most reliable 1-day VaR for the hypothetical portfolio under extreme market conditions. Finally, this paper concludes with a suggestion for further studies : a heavy-tail distribution should be used in order to imporve the accuracy of the results for the two parametric methods used in this study. / by Kyong Chung. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

The main objective of this thesis is to simulate, evaluate and discuss several methods for pricing European-style options. The Black-Scholes model has long been considered the standard method for pricing options. One of the downfalls of the Black-Scholes model is that it is strictly continuous and does not incorporate discrete jumps. This thesis will consider two alternate Levy models that include discretized jumps; The Merton Jump Diffusion and Kou's Double Exponential Jump Diffusion. We will use each of the three models to price real world stock data through software simulations and explore the results.Keywords: Levy Processes, Brownian motion, Option pricing, Simulation, Black-Scholes, Merton Jump Diffusion, Kou, Kou's Double Exponential Jump Diffusion. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.