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Alaska’s state government has long relied on oil revenue as its primary source of funding. In recent years, however, a combination of decreasing oil production and low oil prices has drastically reduced how much revenue Alaska can obtain from taxing oil. As a result, Alaska currently faces severe budget deficits. In order to close this funding gap, there have been numerous proposals for new ways to generate revenue. This thesis analyzes the main proposals, with particular attention given to the role the permanent fund and the permanent fund dividend plays in Alaska’s current funding structure and its future. This thesis concludes by advocating that in the long-term it will be necessary to alter the way the permanent fund functions in order for Alaska to have a sustainable future.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the functioning of trust in the common law jurisdictions and its expansion to the civil law countries. It also focuses on the brand new Czech institute "Svěřenský fond" (trust fund) introduced by the new Czech Civil Code and aims to analyse its nature in regard to its trust context. The thesis is composed of three chapters, each of them dealing with different set of "trust" issues. Chapter One is descriptive. It deals with the history of fiduciary relationships in the Roman, medieval, Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak law as well as the current statutory provisions governing administration of property of others and trust funds in the Czech Republic. It also addresses a number of current ambiguities that have arisen from the recent re-codification. The Second chapter is comparative. Part One includes introductory remarks concerning comparative law issues. Part Two describes the nature and functions of trust in the common law jurisdictions and explains the trust taxonomy. Parts Three and Four provide an outline of several mixed jurisdictions as well as civil law jurisdictions and maps their approach to trusts. Chapter Three is analytical. First part examines the theoretical discrepancies in the civil law and common law notions of property along with other...

Legislation governing foundations and endowment funds Abstract The diploma thesis deals with the topic of foundations and endowment funds with a focus on a current legislation, that is reincorporated into the general legislation after the recodification of the private law. Brief introduction to the topic of foundations and endowment funds is followed by the chapter containing a historical analysis of foundations on the Czech territory since the 9th century. Significant changes, which the foundations went through and caused their present form, are highlighted. The third chapter is the most important and the longest part of the thesis, as it focuses on a current legislation. The chapter defines the institutes of foundation and endowment fund in the contemporary society and it is divided into the two subchapters that concerns both endowment entities separately. The diploma thesis defines the purpose, property and bodies. There is further clarified the establishment and formation process and the reverse dissolution and termination process of these legal entities. In addition, the chapter formulates the Public Benefit Status and the conclusion is devoted to the new terminology brought by the recodification. It is followed by the fourth chapter, which compares a current legislation with the previous one, that was...

M.Comm. (Financial Economics) / In this study, the equilibrium exchange rate path of the rand/dollar real exchange rate between 1994 and the second quarter of 2011 is estimated. This is done by employing a number of methods, namely, Fundamental Equilibrium Exchange Rates (FEER), Behavioural Equilibrium Exchange Rates (BEER), Natural Real Exchange Rate (NATREX) and the Corbae-Oularis filter method. What stands out in the study is that all of the methods lead to results that are close in proximity, with the Corbae-Oularis method as an exception. In the study it is established that during the period when the ZAR.USD real exchange rate was

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The high-water mark provision in hedge fund managers' compensation raises concerns of investors, because they are worried about that fund managers would take unnecessarily high risk in the fund investment. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the optimal strategies for hedge fund managers who choose to maximize the expected power utility from fees in both discrete-time and continuous- time models. The results show that when approaching the fee payment date, hedge fund managers would take as much risk as they are allowed to in the fund investment. However, if hedge fund managers are given more time, they tend to be more conservative. In the continuous-time model, the optimal allocation of the fund in the risky asset depends on market conditions, which are measured by the state price density.

Thesis advisor: Peter Ireland / We study historical hedge fund performance characteristics with a particular focus on the 2007 – 2009 Financial Crisis (the “Crisis”). Using the Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Indexes as proxies for broader hedge fund industry performance, we apply a factor model based on common investment strategies to determine if the broad industry or any particular hedge fund strategies have been able to deliver excess returns, or alpha. We find evidence that the broad hedge fund index did deliver statistically significant excess monthly returns of 0.39% (4.67% annualized) over the period January 1995 – January 2016, with seven of ten individual strategy indexes contributing. However, our results indicate that these excess returns were delivered primarily during the pre-Crisis period of January 1995 – November 2007. Over this period, the broad index delivered statistically significant monthly excess returns of 0.49% (5.93% annualized), with six of ten individual strategy indexes contributing. Our results do not indicate, however, that hedge funds delivered statistically significant monthly excess returns over the period December 2007 – June 2009 or over the period December 2007 – December 2012, which takes into account the uniquely drawn out recovery from the Crisis. We find that the broad index delivered statistically significant excess monthly returns of 0.23% (2.74% annualized) during the post-Crisis period, though these returns are less than half of the pre-Crisis period returns and only three individual strategy indexes contributed. We posit that this apparent shift in performance characteristics might be the result of a shift in the risk tolerances of hedge fund investors and managers following the Crisis. We conclude that, while hedge funds might certainly serve legitimate purposes in financial markets, they are not immune to financial crises, especially those as severe as the Crisis. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Arts and Sciences Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02