This study seeks to explore the conditions under which producer cartels organized by primary producing countries to increase real external purchasing power (income terms of trade) can most effectively achieve their objectives. / To this effect, conventional cartel theory is expanded so as to include the impact of the major institutional factors, with emphasis on centre-periphery (North-South) relationships, the roles played by governments of producing and consuming countries, by transnational enterprises as well as the particular conditions of supply and demand of various commodities. This framework is applied to bauxite, coffee and sugar industries, because each presents unique characteristics. As a principal focus of this study, a comparative analysis of these commodities is undertaken. / The analysis demonstrates that a bauxite cartel has the potential to gain large monopoly profits, but the evidence is against the long run profitability and stability of coffee and sugar cartels. The differences in the characteristics of the primary commodities differentiate the behaviour of cartels and the expected outcomes. Ultimately, the benefits of successful cartels will have to be measured by how the financial gains are used to transform internal structures, eliminate poverty, and promote social justice. As well as being useful for the study of primary commodity cartels in general, this analysis can also aid policy makers concerned with producer cartels.

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht Risikofaktoren und Risikoprämien in Rohstoffmärkten und beinhaltet vier empirische Studien. Die ersten zwei Studien konzentrieren sich dabei auf Risikoprämien von verbundenen Terminmärkten für Elektrizität in Australien. In der dritten Studie wird ein Modell zur Beschreibung von extremen Preissprüngen bei Strom entwickelt. Die vierte Studie untersucht schließlich Risikoprämien in der Convenience Yield auf Rohstoffmärkten. (Für eine detailliertere Beschreibung der einzelnen Studien wird auf die jeweilige englische Zusammenfassung verwiesen.)

This thesis examines the degree to which alternative funds deviate from their style-benchmark and how this is related to past performance and fund size, and how it impacts future risk and returns. Additionally the thesis examines how security selection and market timing skills differ across varying degrees of deviation from the benchmark. The thesis uses data for hedge funds, funds of funds, and CTA funds from the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets and employs fund???s tracking error relative to their style-benchmark to estimate the level of drift. The style-benchmarks used are the median return for all reporting funds that follow a particular style and funds are assigned a benchmark based on their self-reported style. First, this thesis documents statistically significant differences in the tracking errors of portfolios of funds with the highest tracking error versus funds with the lowest tracking error, implying that some managers drift from their self-reported style-benchmarks. Second, funds??? benchmark-inconsistency is less severe in the case of funds that have a regulatory obligation to disclose their performance, suggesting that the absence of regulation fosters an environment where managers can be more flexible with their investment approach. Third, the tendency to drift from the benchmark is most prevalent amongst funds with superior past performance as well as small funds. Fourth, future total portfolio risk increases as funds display more benchmarkinconsistency, suggesting that managers adopt riskier strategies as they attempt to enhance returns. Fifth, the thesis demonstrates that CTA funds that display drift from their benchmark produce higher absolute and relative returns in subsequent periods regardless of the direction of the general market. In contrast, the findings show for hedge funds and funds of funds, benchmark-inconsistent funds are likely to outperform in bull markets and underperform in bear markets. Finally, this thesis shows that more benchmark-consistent managers have better security selection skill. The main contribution of this thesis is in identifying the group of hedge funds, funds of funds, and CTA funds that are likely to deviate from their self-reported style-benchmark and the risk-return consequences of such deviations. The findings have implications for investors and regulators.

This study gives an insight into the behaviour and performance of large speculators and large hedgers in 29 US futures markets. Using a trading determinant model and priced risk factors such as net positions and sentiment index, results suggest hedgers (speculators) exhibit significant positive feedback trading in 15 (7) markets. Information variables like the S&P500 index dividend yield, corporate yield spread and the three months treasury bill rate were mostly unimportant in large players’ trading decisions. Hedgers had better market timing abilities than speculators in judging the direction of the market in one month. The poor market timing abilities and poor significance of positive feedback results suggest higher trading frequency intervals for speculators. Hedging pressures, which measure the presence of risk premium in futures markets, were insignificant mostly in agricultural markets. As a robust test of hedging pressures, price pressure tests found risk premium to be still significant for silver, crude oil and live cattle. The positive feedback behaviour and negative market timing abilities suggest hedgers in heating oil and Japanese yen destabilize futures prices, and points to a need to check CFTC’s (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) position limits regulation in these markets. In fact, large hedgers in these two markets are more likely to be leading behaviour, in that they have more absolute net positions than speculators. Alternatively stated, positive feedback hedgers in these two markets are more likely to lead institutions and investors to buy (sell) overpriced (underpriced) contracts, eventually leading to divergence of prices away from fundamentals. / Atlhought hedgers in crude oil had significant positive feedback behaviour and negative market timing skills, they would not have much of a destabilizing effect over remaining players because the mean net positions of hedgers and speculators were not far apart. While the results are statistically significant, it is suggested these could be economically significant, in that there have been no regulation on position limits at all for hedgers compared to speculators who are imposed with strict limits from the CFTC. Further, mean equations were regressed against decomposed variables, to see how much of the futures returns are attributed to expected components of variables such as net positions, sentiment and information variables. While the expected components of variables are derived by ensuring there are enough ARMA (autoregressive and moving average) terms to make them statistically and economically reliable, the unexpected components of variables measure the residual on differences of the series from its mean. When decomposing net positions against returns, it was found expected net positions to be negatively related to hedgers’ returns in mostly agricultural markets. Speculators’ expected (unexpected) positions were less (more) significant in explaining actual returns, suggesting hedgers are more prone in setting an expected net position at the start of the trading month to determine actual returns rather than readjusting their net positions frequently all throughout the remaining days of the month. While it important to see how futures returns are determined by expected and unexpected values, it is also essential to see how volatility is affected as well. / In an attempt to cover three broad types of volatility measures, idiosyncratic volatility, GARCH based volatility (variance based), and PARCH based volatility (standard deviation) are used. Net positions of hedgers (expected and unexpected) tend to have less effect on idiosyncratic volatility than speculators that tended to add to volatility, reinforcing that hedgers trading activity hardly affect the volatility in their returns. This suggest they are better informed by having a better control over their risk (volatility) measures. The GARCH model showed more reliance of news of volatility from previous month in speculators’ volatility. Hedgers’ and speculators’ volatility had a tendency to decay over time except for hedgers’ volatility in Treasury bonds and coffee, and gold and S&P500 for speculators’ volatility. The PARCH model exhibited more negative components in explaining current volatility. Only in crude oil, heating oil and wheat (Chicago) were idiosyncratic volatility positively related to return, reinforcing the suggestion for stringent regulation in the heating oil market. Expected idiosyncratic volatility was lower (higher) for hedgers (speculators) as expected under portfolio theory. Markets where variance or standard deviation are smaller than those of speculators support the price insurance theory where hedging enables traders to insure against the risk of price fluctuations. Where variance or standard deviation of hedgers is greater than speculators, this suggest the motivation to use futures contracts not primarily to reduce risk, but by institutional characteristics of the futures exchanges like regulation ensuring liquidity. / Results were also supportive that there was higher fluctuations in currency and financial markets due to the higher number of contracts traded and players present. Further, the four models (GARCH normal, GARCH t, PARCH normal and PARCH t) showed returns were leptokurtic. The PARCH model, under normal distribution, produced the best forecast of one-month return in ten markets. Standard deviation and variance for both hedgers’ and speculators’ results were mixed, explained by a desire to reduce risk or other institutional characteristics like regulation ensuring liquidity. Moreover, idiosyncratic volatility failed to accurately forecast the risk (standard deviation or variance based) that provided a good forecast of one-month return. This supports not only the superiority of ARCH based models over models that assume equally weighted average of past squared residuals, but also the presence of time varying volatility in futures prices time series. The last section of the study involved a stability and events analysis, using recursive estimation methods. The trading determinant model, mean equation model , return and risk model, trading activity model and volatility models were all found to be stable following the effect of major global economic events of the 1990s. Models with risk being proxied as standard deviation showed more structural breaks than where variance was used. Overall, major macroeconomic events didn’t have any significant effect upon the large hedgers’ and speculators’ behaviour and performance over the last decade.

No description available.

Zugl.: Heidelberg, University, Diss., 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-246).

There are two ways of understanding assemblages of humans and non-humans inspired by actor-network theory (ANT): consolidation and fluidification. ANT argues that both subjects and objects take shape as a result of assemblages of numerous heterogeneous ingredients. There is, however, some disagreement over how these subjects and objects travel far and endure while staying the same. On the one hand, ‘consolidation’ suggests that heterogeneous materials should be consolidated into networks so that the integrity of assemblages remains while subjects and objects relocate. On the other hand, ‘fluidification’ suggests that fluid-like adaptation may be more feasible, although the integrity of subjects or objects may be at stake. The thesis investigates this tension between the two modes of assemblage via a historical and ethnographic study of milkfish farming in Taiwan and an examination of unsuccessful efforts to export them to mainland China. This study first explores the mutual formation of milkfish and milkfish farming and argues that not only are the physical characteristics of milkfish shaped alongside the socio-technical transformation of the milkfish assemblage, but the fish also act as an agent involved in the shaping of milkfish assemblage. Secondly, this study draws attention to how an industrial version of milkfish as a bulk commodity takes shape as well as how it is enacted so that it becomes the dominant reality for milkfish. It is argued that, paradoxically, this version of reality is maintained through fluidification, in which human actors compromise with enacted multiplicities of milkfish. Thirdly, this study turns to the milkfish export scheme. Set up under the auspices of the Chinese government in 2011, milkfish were exported to Shanghai. But milkfish failed to find a market in Shanghai, and so the export scheme was terminated in 2016. This study first reveals that the material characteristics of ‘ready-made’ milkfish are not easy to integrate into local ways of cooking and eating. Moreover, the fish are excluded from adaptation, while the scheme was adapted in practice to suit the requirements of various other actors brought together by the scheme. This thesis suggests that the lower the demand for milkfish in China, the higher is the need for such an export scheme in Taiwan, but that such a scheme will most likely take the form of continued ‘consolidation’, keeping the export of unsalable fish going while bringing minimal changes to the status quo of milkfish assemblage. Overall, this study of milkfish argues for the co-existence, in tension, of consolidation and fluidification. That is, neither mode of assemblage is in opposition to nor replaceable by the other. The implications for material politics of this study include not only a need to make visible the work of ‘purification’ that keeps both subjects and objects apparently separate from one another, and from others within each realm, but also a need to highlight efforts to erase other possible modes of assemblage, in which the formation of objects and of object-oriented collectives are embedded differently.

Inúmeros fatores afetam diretamente o negócio dos produtores rurais, porém dois deles são claramente observáveis: a variabilidade nos preços e a dificuldade de agregar valor nos seus produtos agrícolas. Uma das soluções para mitigar estes problemas é através do uso do marketing, visando transformar uma commodity num produto com um valor agregado maior e uma marca reconhecida no mercado. Neste contexto, este trabalho buscou propor um Plano Comercial para introduzir um produto, in natura, a base da semente de Chia na cidade de Porto Alegre, com maior valor agregado, explorando todos os componentes do composto de marketing (preço, produto, distribuição e comunicação). O trabalho conseguiu desenvolver este plano com sucesso, identificando um público alvo e propondo um novo produto com embalagem inovadora; precificação com foco na maximização de mercado, uma arquitetura de canais de distribuição com poucos agentes e um plano de comunicação com foco nas mídias digitais e nos formadores de opinião. Finalmente este plano pode servir de guia para replicá-lo para outro tipo de produtores agrícolas que se enfrentem com as mesmas dificuldades. / Many factors affect the farmers’ business, of which two are most salient ones: price variability and the difficulty to add value to their agricultural products. One possibility to mitigate these problems is throughout a marketing strategy aiming to convert a commodity into a product with greater added value and a recognized brand in the market. Dealing with these challenges, this work proposes a Commercial Plan model to introduce a Chia seed product, in natura, in the city of Porto Alegre, with greater added value through the use of all components of the marketing compound (price, product, distribution and communication). The business plan developed successfully identifying a target consumer and proposed a new product with innovative packaging; pricing focus on market maximization, distribution channel architecture with few agents and communication plan focus on digital media and opinions leaders. It also serves as a guide for farmers that work with different commodities but face similar difficulties.

Inúmeros fatores afetam diretamente o negócio dos produtores rurais, porém dois deles são claramente observáveis: a variabilidade nos preços e a dificuldade de agregar valor nos seus produtos agrícolas. Uma das soluções para mitigar estes problemas é através do uso do marketing, visando transformar uma commodity num produto com um valor agregado maior e uma marca reconhecida no mercado. Neste contexto, este trabalho buscou propor um Plano Comercial para introduzir um produto, in natura, a base da semente de Chia na cidade de Porto Alegre, com maior valor agregado, explorando todos os componentes do composto de marketing (preço, produto, distribuição e comunicação). O trabalho conseguiu desenvolver este plano com sucesso, identificando um público alvo e propondo um novo produto com embalagem inovadora; precificação com foco na maximização de mercado, uma arquitetura de canais de distribuição com poucos agentes e um plano de comunicação com foco nas mídias digitais e nos formadores de opinião. Finalmente este plano pode servir de guia para replicá-lo para outro tipo de produtores agrícolas que se enfrentem com as mesmas dificuldades. / Many factors affect the farmers’ business, of which two are most salient ones: price variability and the difficulty to add value to their agricultural products. One possibility to mitigate these problems is throughout a marketing strategy aiming to convert a commodity into a product with greater added value and a recognized brand in the market. Dealing with these challenges, this work proposes a Commercial Plan model to introduce a Chia seed product, in natura, in the city of Porto Alegre, with greater added value through the use of all components of the marketing compound (price, product, distribution and communication). The business plan developed successfully identifying a target consumer and proposed a new product with innovative packaging; pricing focus on market maximization, distribution channel architecture with few agents and communication plan focus on digital media and opinions leaders. It also serves as a guide for farmers that work with different commodities but face similar difficulties.

Este estudo teve como objetivo examinar o relacionamento entre o comportamento estratégico e a performance organizacional de empresas que compõem a rede de revendas da Supergasbras Energia. A fim de responder ao problema de pesquisa, que consiste em examinar se existe relação entre o comportamento estratégico e a performance organizacional, adota-se o modelo proposto por Miles e Snow. Em termos metodológicos, trata-se de uma pesquisa descritiva, com abordagem tanto qualitativa quanto quantitativa dos dados. Para identificar o comportamento estratégico das empresas pesquisadas, foi aplicado o questionário adaptado de Conant et al. (1990) e, no que se refere à performance organizacional, utilizou-se relatórios empresariais fornecidos pela Supergasbras Energia. Constatou-se que não é possível afirmar haver um comportamento estratégico predominante nas empresas pesquisadas, que é justificado pela frequência igual a dos comportamentos prospector e defensivo e, em razão de apresentarem características antagônicas, não são representativos na análise do grupo como um todo. Diante dessa constatação, infere-se que somente é possível analisar o comportamento estratégico desse grupo de empresas a partir da fragmentação dos problemas do ciclo adaptativo caracterizados no modelo de Miles e Snow (1978). Quanto ao problema empreendedor, as empresas pesquisadas apresentam comportamento estratégico prospector nas dimensões domínio de produto-mercado e nas estratégias de crescimento, contudo, o comportamento analista ficou destacado nas dimensões postura de sucesso e monitoramento ambiental. Para o problema de engenharia, nas dimensões amplitude tecnológica e anteparo tecnológico, predomina o comportamento analista e, para os objetivos tecnológicos, os resultados apontam para predominância do comportamento defensivo. No problema administrativo, predomina comportamento defensivo nas dimensões coalizão dominante e estrutura, seguido do comportamento prospector e reativo nas dimensões controle e planejamento, respectivamente. Quanto à performance organizacional, há preponderância dos altos níveis de desempenho em todas as tipologias de comportamento, indicando que esses níveis apresentam relação direta com o posicionamento estratégico da empresa distribuidora. Os resultados da investigação apontam para o comportamento estratégico reativo como determinante dos melhores índices de performance organizacional, indicando que esse resultado é uma característica do segmento, que comercializa produtos commodity, podendo, as ações de inovação e diferenciação acarretar minimização do desempenho organizacional. Pode-se concluir também que o comportamento defensivo é responsável pelos piores níveis de performance das empresas pesquisadas. Contudo a análise setorial apresenta-se como uma nova perspectiva de estudo, pois, ao fragmentar o grupo de empresas investigadas identificou-se que as varejistas apresentam níveis de desempenho superiores e que o comportamento predominante desse grupo de empresas é o prospector. De acordo com a análise setorial, o comportamento que gera os piores índices de performance organizacional é o defensivo. Conclui-se, portanto, que existe relação entre comportamento estratégico e performance organizacional. / 125 f.