Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2009. / "Submitted to Department of Economics and Finance in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-73)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 1999. Schulich School of Business. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ43429.

We make a first-order calculation of accumulation rates in the catchment of Thwaites Glacier (TG), West Antarctica using the Nye and Daansgard-Johnson methodologies. Both formulations compute accumulations as a function of the age-depth relationship, including a thinning correction due to ice flow. For this purpose, I track and firn-correct two continuous, shallow ice layers obtained from radio echo soundings surveyed during the 2004-05 AGASEA expedition. The layers range from 60 to 700 meters depth between the ice divide and the coast. Dating of layers come from the ice core WDC06A, located on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) ice divide, which have ages 548 and 725 years, respectively. We compare our accumulation results with four independent datasets: 1)IceBridge snow radar (2009-2010), optimized for tracking near-surface layers; 2) a contemporary model of snowfall precipitation, 3) an interpolation of ice core data using satellite passive microwave; 4) ice cores data. We test the hypothesis that accumulation rates have increased since the beginning of the industrial era, a change that has not been observed. Indeed, I find that observations indicate that accumulation rates in the TG catchment have not changed during the past ~700 years. From here I assess the mass balance of the system and analyze what it tells about the history of the glacier. / text

published_or_final_version / Statistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

The term structure of interest rates shows the relationship between yields of zero-coupon bonds and their maturities. The empirical performance of the single-factor model of the affine term structure models, such as Vasicek (1977) and Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985), has not been entirely satisfactory. The curve fitting methods, and particularly the spline method, used in practice to estimate the term structure are ad hoc and thus subject to arbitrage opportunities. Guo (1998) used the fundamental Partial Differential Equation (PDE) for bond pricing to derive a linear discount function, which is consistent with no-arbitrage. He showed that this is the unique linear solution to the PDE. This solution, the exponential-polynomial model or EP model for short, has n unobserved state factors that drive a stochastic discount process for pricing bonds so as to rule out arbitrage opportunities. In this thesis, we conduct an extensive cross-sectional analysis of the EP model on two different data sets: prices for daily Treasury bills, notes and bonds from the New York Federal Reserve Bank quotation sheets from July 1989 to October 1996, and daily Canadian bills, notes and bonds prices for the time period from June 1992 to May 1995. We estimate the model by applying a minimization criterion. The cross-sectional analysis shows that the EP model is able to describe adequately the term structure of interest rates. For the US data, we find that every term structure from the sampling period can be fully represented by either nine or ten state factors. Eigenvalue analysis indicates that the first three principal components are underlying the term structure movements. We conduct a time series analysis on the three principal components. They are found to be best described by ARMA/GARCH processes. We form two types of GARCH forecasts of the three principal components and test their out-of-sample performance. We conclude that the three principal components are predictable in a statis

This thesis addresses the problem of pricing perishable inventories such as airline seats and hotel rooms. It also analyzes the airline seat allocation problem when two airlines compete on a single-leg flight. Finally, several existing models for seat allocation with multiple fares on a single-leg flight are compared. The pricing framework is consistent with modern yield management tools which utilize restrictions such as weekend stayover to segment the market. One model analyzed considers a restriction which is irrelevant to one set of consumers, but which the others find so onerous that they will not purchase a restricted ticket at any price. If the consumers who do not mind the restriction are less price sensitive than those who find the restriction onerous, then the thesis shows that there is an optimal policy for a monopolist which will sell fares at no more than three price levels. When two restrictions are allowed in the model, if one is more onerous than the other in the sense that the set of consumers who would not buy a ticket with the first restriction is a subset of those who would not buy it with the second restriction, then the restrictions are said to be nested. If the sets of consumers who would not buy tickets with the first restriction is disjoint from those who would not buy with the second restriction, then the restrictions are said to be mutually exclusive. If two restrictions are either nested or mutually exclusive, then a monopolist needs at most four price levels with three types (i.e. combinations of restrictions) of product. With two general restrictions, the monopolist may need five price levels with four types of product. The pricing model is applied to restrictions which are based on membership in a particular organization. For example, employees of an airline are frequently eligible for special fares. Some airlines provide special fares for government employees or for employees of certain corporations. An analysis is given to help airlines understand the costs and benefits of such arrangements. A model of two airlines competing on a single-leg flight is developed for the case where the airlines have fixed capacity and fixed price levels for two types of fares-full and discount. The airlines compete by controlling the number of discount fares which they sell. The split of the market between the airlines is modelled in two different ways. First, the airlines might share the market for a fare class proportionally to their allocation of seats to that fare class. In this case, under certain conditions, there exists an equilibrium pair of booking limits for the discount fare such that each airline will protect the same number of seats for the full fare customers, even when the demands are random and stochastically dependent. The second market sharing model assumes that the two airlines share the market demand equally. In this case, when the demands are deterministic, then there is an equilibrium solution where each airline will protect enough seats to split equally the market for the full fares. Finally, three existing seat allocation models for multi-fare single-leg flights with stochastically independent demands are compared. It is shown that the optimality conditions for each of these models are analytically equivalent, thus providing a unified approach to this problem.

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Aims: In this article, we will apply the multinational view to explore the relationships between saving, investment and economic growth. We will explore the dynamic relationship among these three factors from the empirical perspective. We are going to compare the mutual influence among these three factors and try to figure out the dynamic correlation. And find out the factors that influence economic growth the most in the short run and long run respectively.   Method: For the research purpose and the contents, our article applies several methods such as literature research, quantitative research, comprehensive analysis and logical induction and comparison research. We separate two parts to analysis. In the first part we will use the stepwise regression method to prove our five assumptions and through path analysis to calculate path coefficient. In order to guarantee the stability of these data, these indexes apply the average value of 214 countries from 2000 to 2011. In the second part, we will use a Cobb-Douglas production model to figure out the long run economic growth behavior, we will introduce the concept of total factor productivity. And use the data of a sample space of 35 in the interval of 1975 to 2009.   Limitations: Firstly, the paper didn’t investigate datum on further step, or has deeper proceeding of default datum, the data quality might occur to important influence to the conclusion, it did need to take cautious attitudes. Secondly, the paper acquires relative simple control variables, where default datum of control variable might induce strong influence on the conclusion, thus a deeper analyses need take many various factors into considerations, in order to analyze net effects of two variables. Thirdly, it clarifies from the degree of fitting, the paper using relative simple model, and does affect quality of the process, to get deeper analyze then needs more precious model for further analyze.   Conclusion: This paper provided evidence to show economic growth is positive related to saving and investment and is negative to income level. Saving rate is positive related to income level and positive related to investment level, saving rate has indirect effect on economic growth, and saving rate has indirect effect on economic growth via investment rate. And there is a close relationship between investment and economic growth. Solow residual indicates that we will have to rely on the technology progress to increase efficiency in the long run.

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