In this thesis, we analyze new possibilities in predicting daily ranges, i.e. the differences between daily high and low prices. The main focus of our work lies in investigating how models commonly used for daily ranges modeling can be enhanced to provide better forecasts. In this respect, we explore the added benefit of using more efficient volatility measures as predictors of daily ranges. Volatility measures considered in this work include realized measures of variance (realized range, realized variance) and range-based volatility measures (Parkinson, Garman & Klass, Rogers & Satchell, etc). As a subtask, we empirically assess efficiency gains in volatility estimation when using range-based estimators as opposed to simple daily ranges. As another venue of research in this work, we analyze the added benefit of slicing the trading day into different sessions based on trading activity (e.g. Asian, European and American session). In this setting we analyze whether whole-day volatility measures reliably aggregate information coming from all trading sessions. We are led by intuition that different sessions exhibit significantly different characteristics due to different order book thicknesses and trading activity in general. Thus these sessions are expected to provide valuable information concealed in...

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In Chapter 1, I hypothesize that there is a differential response by agents to changes in sovereign credit or default risk in both quiet (low default risk) and turbulent markets (high default risk). These market conditions create two different states of the market (world) or regimes. Investors and policy makers respond differently in the two regimes but the response in the turbulent market condition is amplified as policy makers attempt to smoothen the fluctuations and uncertainty while investors rebalance their portfolios in an attempt to hedge against downside risk of wealth loss. In the two regimes, the short run and long run dynamic relationships between any two cointegrated assets may change. To capture this phenomenon, this study tests for nonlinearities that may characterize the regimes, how cointegration relationships, short term dynamic interaction and price discovery (speed of adjustment to new information between two assets) may change in alternative regimes. To this end, I employ threshold cointegration, threshold vector error correction model (TVECM) asymmetrical return spillover modeling for sovereign credit default swaps (CDS), bonds and equity markets of seventeen emerging markets from four geographical regions. I find that there is non-linear cointegration and momentum in long-run adjustment process in 43/51 spreads analyzed. All countries analyzed have at least 2/6 possible regime specific asymmetric price discovery process. The study also finds evidence in support of asset substitution hypothesis and news-based hypothesis of financial contagions in sovereign CDS, bond and equity markets. The findings have important implications for asset allocation and portfolio rebalancing decisions by investors, policy intervention in financial markets, risk management and regime specific short and/or long term dynamic interactions among assets held in a portfolio as well as nonlinear speed of adjustment to new information. In chapter 2, I hypothesize that financial intermediaries can be categorized into bank-based institutions (BBIs) and market-based institutions (MBIs). MBIs and BBIs are under different regulatory agencies. Traditionally, only BBIs, regulated by the Fed, are used as conduits of transmitting liquidity and monetary policy into real economy and financial markets yet MBIs also play important role in providing liquidity and stability in financial markets. I use two tools of monetary policy (Federal fund rate and monetary aggregate) under two monetary policy regimes to investigate the impact of monetary policy under each regime on the liquidity of MBIs and BBIs. I investigate whether MBIs be used as conduits of transmitting monetary policy and liquidity in the market and if they should, under what economic and financial conditions (Regimes) should they be used. Moreover, what monetary policy tool is more effective for MBIs relative to BBIs under different regimes? Using Threshold vector auto-regressions and regime specific impulse response functions, I find that liquidity of BBIs and MBIs respond differently to different monetary policy tools under different regimes. Moreover, monetary policies are uncertain and vary over time. The Fed cannot continue to ignore MBIs in formulating and implementing monetary policy. Moreover, monetary aggregate policy is more effective when used on MBIs during contractionary monetary policy intervention (economic downturn) while Federal fund rate is more effective when used on BBIs under expansionary monetary policy.

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / Life expectancy in South African has been fluctuating following the global trends that affects both developed and developing countries. In South Africa the average life expectancy from 1994 to 1996 was higher with an average of 61,3 years. As from 1997 to 1999 it declined to an average of 58,4 years. The difference in years between 1994-1996 and 1997- 1999 was 2,9 years. From 2000-2002, life expectancy continued to decline to an average of 54,6 years. Life expectancy declined in a constant proportion from 2003-2005 and 2006-2008. In 2003-2005 it slightly declined to 52 years and in 2004-2007 it declined to 42,0 years. Life expectancy escalated after the mentioned years to 54,4 years between 2009-2011 and from 2012-2013 life expectancy was 54,0 years on average. This study examined factors or variables that verify the socioeconomic determinants of life expectancy in post-apartheid South Africa. Understanding the relationship between life expectancy and the socioeconomic variables was based on three objectives. The main objective for this study was to determine the impact of socioeconomic variables and health policy efforts on life expectancy, seeking an in-depth understanding by investigating the causality relationship between life expectancy and socioeconomic variables thus later investigating the difference between male and female’s life expectancy. This study was motivated by the fluctuating life expectancy in South Africa. The fluctuation in life expectancy were thus studied in relation to socioeconomic determinants which are government health expenditure, government education expenditure, GDP per capita, total fertility rate, urban population, access to sustainable drinking water and undernourishment. The mentioned variables were used as socioeconomic determinants of life expectancy during post-apartheid South Africa.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2014. / Dornbusch’s exchange rate overshooting hypothesis has guided monetary policy conduct for many years though empirical evidence on its validity is mixed. This study re-examines the validity of the overshooting hypothesis by using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) procedure. Specifically, the study investigates whether the overshooting hypothesis holds for the United States Dollar/Zambian Kwacha (USD-ZMK) exchange rate. In addition, the study tests if there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between the USD-ZMK exchange rate and the macroeconomic fundamentals (money supply, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), interest rates and inflation rates). The study uses monthly nominal USD/ZMK exchange rates and monetary fundamentals data from January 2000 to December 2012. The study finds no evidence of exchange rate overshooting. The result also show that there is no long run equilibrium relationship between the exchange rate and the differentials of macroeconomic fundamentals. The implication is that macroeconomic fundamentals are insignificant in determining the exchange rate fluctuations in the long run. This finding is inconsistent with the monetary model of exchange rate determination, which asserts that there is a long-run relationship between the exchange rate and macroeconomic fundamentals.

This thesis analyzes the performance and process of constructing portfolios of cryptocurrency pairs based on cointegrated relationships indicated by the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Johansen’s test and Phillips Peron’s test. Pairs are tested for cointegration over a 3-month and a 6-month window and then traded over a trading window of the same length. The cryptocurrencies included in the study are 14 cryptocurrencies with the highest market capitalization on April 24th 2019. One trading strategy has been applied on every portfolio following the 3-month and the 6-month methodology with thresholds at 1.75 and stop-losses at 4 standard deviations. The performance of each portfolio is compared with their corresponding buy and hold benchmark. All portfolios outperformed their buy and hold benchmark, with and without transaction costs set to 2%. Following the 3-month methodology was superior to the 6- month method and the portfolios formed through Phillips Peron’s test had the highest return for both window methods.

This thesis analyzes the long run relationship between stock markets and macroeconomic variables, such as the real industrial production index, consumer price index, money supply, and long-term government bonds. By the use of recent developments in cointegration methodologies a larger set of countries is analyzed due to mitigation of the issue where variables are integrated of different orders. Based on a present value model, this thesis applies an ARDL model and conducts the bounds testing procedure for analysis of cointegrating relationships among the variables. Complemented by the popular Johansen cointegration methodology, it is found that the variables are cointegrated for all of the twelve countries. Hence, the present value model provides a theoretical explanation of the long run connection between stock markets and macroeconomic variables. Finally, the long run relationship is estimated using both FMOLS and DOLS. Results show that real economic activity, proxied by the real industrial production index, enters a positive relationship with the stock market indices, and so does money supply. In contrast, the consumer price index and long-term government bonds enter a negative relationship with the stock market indices. Hence, this thesis adds to the literature by applying new methodologies to the topic, through which a larger set of countries can be analyzed, and by further analyzing the long run relationship between stock markets and real economic activity.

O café foi de extrema importância para o desenvolvimento e a dinamização da economia brasileira desde meados do século XIX, quando já ocupava a posição de principal produto da pauta exportadora brasileira, aí se mantendo por quase um século. Nos dias atuais, apesar de ter passado por diversos momentos de instabilidade, o Brasil ainda é maior produtor e exportador mundial de café. Atualmente, com a desregulação pelo Estado, há uma mais organização estratégica e maior cooperação entre os agentes. Como o café é um produto típico de exportação, seu preço nas diferentes regiões do país está ligado aos preços internacionais. Teoricamente, os mercados estando interligados, devem ser observadas tendências temporais muito próximas entre as séries no longo prazo. Posto isso, o objetivo do presente trabalho é avaliar a integração e a transmissão de preços do café arábica negociado na bolsa ICE Futures US, em Nova York, para as regiões produtoras de café arábica dentro dos estados de São Paulo (Mogiana e Paulista), Paraná (Noroeste) e Minas Gerais (Cerrado e Sul). Para analisar a relação de assimetria entre os preços de café das bolsas e do mercado físico utiliza-se o modelo descrito por Cânedo-Pinheiro (2012) para o mercado de óleo diesel no Brasil e por Cunha e Wander (2014) para o mercado de feijão no Estado de São Paulo. Como resultados, observou-se a presença de integração entre as séries de preços nas regiões estudadas com os preços da bolsa ICE Futures US, tanto no curto como no longo prazo. Todas as séries apresentaram elasticidade de transmissão de preços maior do que a unidade. A assimetria de transmissão de preços foi verificada em todas as regiões estudadas, ou seja, reduções de preço no mercado internacional são repassadas com maior intensidade para o produtor do que aumentos, exceto no caso do Sul de Minas Gerais, onde os ajustes foram simétricos. Apesar da existência de assimetria no curto prazo, o estudo verificou que no longo prazo, para todas as regiões, a assimetria tende a se inverter e mesmo desaparecer, dependendo do período. No curto prazo, os ajustes de queda são repassados mais rapidamente que os aumentos, enquanto que no longo prazo a velocidade de ajustamento para os aumentos de preços é maior do que para reduções, com exceção da região Mogiana. / Coffee was one of the most important products for the development and dynamism of the Brazilian economy since the mid-nineteenth century, when it held the first position of Brazilian exports, and kept as first for nearly a century. Nowadays, despite of having gone through several moments of instability, Brazil is still the largest coffee producer and exporter in the world. Currently, with the deregulation of the state, there is a more strategic organization and greater cooperation among agents. Because coffee is a typical export product, it´s price in different regions of the country is linked to international prices. Therefore, the price series have the same long term tendency, for being linked. The objective of this study is to evaluate the integration and price transmission of arabica coffee, traded on ICE Futures US in New York, to the producing regions of arabica coffee in the states of São Paulo (Mogiana and Paulista), Paraná (Northeast) and Minas Gerais (Cerrado and South). In order to analyze the asymmetric price transmission between international coffee prices and Brazilian markets, the rule model for the diesel fuel market in Brazil, was the one described by Canedo-Pinheiro (2012), and for the dry bean market in the state of Sao Paulo, the model used by Cunha and Wander (2014). The findings confirm the presence of integration between the price series in the regions studied and the prices of ICE Futures US in both short and long term. All series had elasticity transmission rates greater than unity. The asymmetry in price transmission was present in all regions studied, ie price reductions in the international market are passed on with greater intensity for the producer than the increases, except in South of Minas Gerais, where adjustments were symmetrical. Even though there is short-term asymmetry, the study found that in the long run, asymmetry tends to reverse and even disappear, depending on the period, for all producer regions. Although the drop settings are passed on faster than the increases in the short term, in the long-term the speed adjustment for price increases is greater than for reductions, except Mogiana region.

Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar a interação entre preços internos e externos do algodão para determinar se a abertura comercial ocorrida na década de noventa representou efetivamente um aumento da influência dos preços externos sobre os preços internos da pluma no país. A escolha do algodão deve-se à sua trajetória recente, marcada pela rápida transição de um produto de exportação (ou potencialmente exportável) para um produto de importação durante boa parte da década de noventa. Esta transição foi causada basicamente pela abertura comercial e desregulamentação do mercado ocorridas no início da década que causaram uma maciça entrada do produto estrangeiro no país. A metodologia escolhida foi a análise de co-integração, especificamente o Procedimento de Johansen. A análise de co-integração é recomendável quando são utilizadas variáveis não-estacionárias, o que inviabiliza o uso do modelo de regressão simples para estabelecer a relação entre as variáveis. A não-estacionariedade das variáveis num contexto de regressão linear simples invalida as inferências baseadas nos testes t e F e impede o correto estabelecimento de relações de equilíbrio entre elas. Caso as variáveis sejam co-integradas, entretanto, é possível estabelecer tais relações e analisar o comportamento de curto e longo prazo entre as variáveis. Desta forma, foram escolhidas quatro séries de preços para representarem os preços internos e externos. O preço interno foi representado pela série CONAB e o preço externo pelas séries Cotlook A, Cotlook B e Nova York. Utilizando preços referentes ao período de janeiro de 1982 a setembro de 2001, o mercado brasileiro e o norte-americano, representados pelos índices CONAB e Nova York, foram considerados integrados, ou seja, choques ocorridos em um mercado foram transmitidos ao outro mercado no longo prazo. Testando o grau de integração entre estes mercados, concluímos que eles podem ser considerados perfeitamente integrados neste período, ou seja, a variação no preço de um mercado foi transmitida de maneira completa ao outro mercado no longo prazo. Os resultados referentes à década de oitenta mostraram que o mercado brasileiro de algodão em pluma pode ser considerado como um mercado fechado neste período, pois os preços internos representados pelo índice CONAB não participaram do equilíbrio de longo prazo com os demais preços. Este resultado deve-se à grande intervenção governamental no mercado de algodão observada no período, que impedia que grandes quedas ou aumentos de preços internacionais fossem incorporados aos preços internos. Em relação à década de noventa, os resultados indicam que o mercado brasileiro pode ser considerado integrado aos mercados internacionais. De forma geral, os resultados demonstram empiricamente a modificação ocorrida no mercado brasileiro de algodão na década de noventa, demonstrando que este mercado é significativamente mais integrado às variáveis internacionais do que na década de oitenta. / This study had as objective to analyze the interaction among internal and external prices of cotton to determine if the commercial liberalization occurred in the nineties represented an influence increase of external prices on internal prices of cotton feather in Brazil. The choice of cotton is due to its recent trajectory, marked by fast transition of an export product (or potentially exportable) for an import product during most part of the nineties. This transition was caused basically by the commercial liberalization and market deregulation occurred in the beginning of the decade, which caused a massive entrance of the foreign product in Brazil. The chosen methodology was cointegration analysis, specifically the Johansen Procedure. The cointegration analysis is advisable when nonstationary variables are used, which makes unfeasible to use the simple regression model to establish the relationship among the variables. The nonstationarity of the variables in a context of simple linear regression invalidates the inferences based on the t- and F-tests and it impedes correct establishment of equilibrium relationships among them. If the variables are cointegrated, however, it is possible to establish such relationships and to analyze short and long-term behavior among variables. In this manner, four series were chosen to represent the internal and external prices. The internal price was represented by the CONAB series and the external prices by the series: Cotlook A, Cotlook B and New York. Analyzing the period of January, 1982 to September, 2001, Brazilian and North American market, represented by the series CONAB and New York, were considered integrated, that means, shocks happened in a market were transmitted to the other market in the long-term. Testing the integration degree among these markets, we concluded that they could be considered perfectly integrated in this period, which means, price variation in a market was transmitted to the other market in a complete way in the long-term. The results concerning the eighties showed that cotton Brazilian market can be considered as a closed market in this period, because the internal prices represented by the series CONAB didn't participate of long-term equilibrium with other prices. This result is due to great government intervention in cotton market observed in this period, which impeded that great falls or increases of international prices were incorporate to internal prices. The results concerning the nineties indicate that Brazilian market can be considered integrated to international markets. In a general way, the results demonstrate empirically the modification occurred in cotton Brazilian market in the nineties, demonstrating that this market is significantly more integrated to international variables than in the eighties.

O objetivo desta tese consiste na elaboração de dois estudos empíricos. No primeiro, estuda-se as propriedades da estrutura a termo das taxas de juros e em particular testa-se a validade da hipótese de expectativas a dados brasileiros e americanos. Os melhores resultados foram obtidos para os dados americanos. No segundo estudo pesquisa-se os determinantes da volatilidade dos títulos de dívida soberana de quatro países – Brasil, Argentina, Rússia e México. Os modelos utilizados são multivariados da família GARCH. Avalia-se em que medida as crises financeiras pelas quais passaram os países citados implicaram em algum tipo de contágio aos demais. Há evidência favorável à hipótese de contágio de muitos dos eventos estudados. / The thesis is composed by two empirical studies. In the first it’s analyzed the proprieties of the interest rate term structure and, in particular, it’s investigated whether or not the expectation hypothesis is a good description of Brazilian and American data. The results are better for American data. In the second study it’s investigated the sovereign debt bonds volatility of four countries – Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Argentine. The volatility was analyzed by the estimation of multivariate GARCH models. The existence of financial crises contagion was investigated and tested. There is some evidence in favor of the contagion hypothesis.