Impact of the tick-size on financial returns and correlations

We demonstrate that the lowest possible price change (tick-size) has a large impact on the structure of financial return distributions. It induces a microstructure as well as possibly altering the tail behavior. On small return intervals, the tick-size can distort the calculation of correlations. This especially occurs on small return intervals and thus contributes to the decay of the correlation coefficient towards smaller return intervals (Epps effect). We study this behavior within a model and identify the effect in market data. Furthermore, we present a method to compensate this purely statistical error.     

On the assortment optimization with endogenized market size

In this paper, we consider the joint effects of product substitution and market size endogenization. Under the substitution effects, a product’s demand may be cannibalized by other substitutable products; while the market size, measured by the number of customers who are interested in the products from the same category, may be largely influenced by the product offer set. We establish the computational complexity for the assortment problem under the joint effects, and develop a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS).     

Comparing efficiency across markets: An extension and critique of the methodology

The use of non-parametric frontier methods for the evaluation of product market efficiency in heterogeneous markets seems to have gained some popularity recently. However, the statistical properties of these frontier estimators have been largely ignored. The main point is that non-parametric frontier estimators are biased and that the degree of bias depends on specific sample properties, most importantly sample size and number of dimensions of the model. To investigate the effect of this bias on comparing market efficiency, this contribution estimates the efficiency for several datasets for two main product categories. Following (Zhang, Y., Bartels, R., 1998. The effect of sample size on the mean efficiency in DEA with an application to electricity distribution in Australia, Sweden and New Zealand. Journal of Productivity Analysis, 9(3), 187-204.), these results comprise re-estimates for the larger samples limiting their size to that of the smaller samples when the model dimensions for different samples are identical. Furthermore, sample sizes are adjusted to mitigate the eventual differences in dimensions in specification. This allows comparing market efficiency for different markets on a more equal footing, since it reduces the bias effect to a minimum making the comparison of market efficiency possible. However, the article also points out the critical limitations of this [Zhang, Y., Bartels, R., (1998). The effect of sample size on the mean efficiency in DEA with an application to electricity distribution in Australia, Sweden and New Zealand. Journal of Productivity Analysis 9 (3), 187–204] approach in certain respects. Apart from reporting these negative results, we also offer some suggestions for future work.     

Stochastic optimal budget decision for advertising considering uncertain sales responses

Firms are faced with uncertain sales responses even though they advertise appropriately. To help marketing managers make optimal budget decisions in this situation, we develop a stochastic model, depicting the problem of advertising budget decision as a special Markov decision process where a new objective, maximizing expected market utility, is proposed. In the model we introduce a two-dimension state variable including accumulative sales, which vary randomly with advertising budget, and the predicted probability that an advertising campaign obtains a full sales response. We make an analysis of the model on the premise of growing infinite market potential, deriving the property of optimal policies and that of optimal value function. These results are successfully used to make advertising budget decisions for a private university in Xi’an, China.     

The endogenous dynamics of financial markets: Interaction and information dissemination

We investigate the process that different interactions between investors will prompt information to propagate along a differentiated path and construct a financial market model. As information spreads, increasingly investors are attracted to participate in trading, then the “herding effect” is magnified gradually, which will induce the topology of market network to change and the price to fluctuate. Especially, under different initial conditions or parameters, the peak and fat-tail property is produced and the obtained statistic values coincide with empirical results: the power-law exponents between the peak value of return probability distribution and the time scales range from 0.579 to 0.747, and the exponents between the accumulation distribution and the return on the tail are close to 3. Besides, the extent of volatility clustering in our produced price series is close to that of S&P 500 and locates between NASDAQ and HSI. All the results obtained here indicate that the continuous variation of the “herding effect” resulting from information propagation among interacting investors may be the origin of stylized facts of price fluctuations.     

条件VaR和条件CVaR的核估计及其实证分析

VaR和CVaR是目前两种主流风险度量工具。条件VaR和条件CVaR是基于市场风险因子在已知条件(或信息)下的分布来计量和测算VaR和CVaR,能够及时地根据变化的条件来重新估计风险进而进行有效的风险管理,是对传统的基于边际分布的VaR和CVaR指标的有益补充。另外一方面,近年来非参数核估计方法因模型设定灵活、方便处理变量相依结构等优点备受关注。在本文,我们用条件VaR和条件CVaR的非参数核估计法,对我国A股市场的风险进行测算。结果得出:条件VaR和条件CVaR能揭示出深证成指和上证综指之间的不同风险特征;条件VaR和条件CVaR的测算结果并非总是一致;系统风险估计值对已知条件的敏感性高于深发展A和万科A两只股票的个股风险。以上风险特征在边际VaR和边际CVaR下无法得到。     

Market efficiency in foreign exchange markets

We investigate the relative market efficiency in financial market data, using the approximate entropy(ApEn) method for a quantification of randomness in time series. We used the global foreign exchange market indices for 17 countries during two periods from 1984 to 1998 and from 1999 to 2004 in order to study the efficiency of various foreign exchange markets around the market crisis. We found that on average, the ApEn values for European and North American foreign exchange markets are larger than those for African and Asian ones except Japan. We also found that the ApEn for Asian markets increased significantly after the Asian currency crisis. Our results suggest that the markets with a larger liquidity such as European and North American foreign exchange markets have a higher market efficiency than those with a smaller liquidity such as the African and Asian markets except Japan.     

市场风险值VaR的算法与应用

进行金融风险管理时可以将风险划分为四类，即信用风险、经营风险、流动性风险和市场风险。其中市场风险是指金融市场价格（包括股票价格、利率、汇率和大宗可交易商品的价格）波动而引起的未来收益的不确定性。市场风险值VaR(Value at Risk）就是用来评价给定资产所面临的市场风险大小。本文介绍了VaR的定义、相关的计算方法和在证券投资决策中的应用实例。     

转点识别在VaR估计中的应用

本文深入分析了VaR估计结果对市场比率运动规律假设的依赖性 .文献 [1 ],[2 ][4 ]都没有考虑市场因素出现结构性的转变对VaR估计的影响 .事实上 ,市场因素受到其它各种因素的影响 ,很可能发生结构性的转变 .故本文在引入转点识别的基础上对VaR估计方法作出改进 ,从而把市场因素结构性转变引入到VaR估计之中 ,且随机模拟实验结果表明引入转点后的预报有更高的可信度 .     

CAPM模型对上海股票市场的检验

本文就 CAPM模型对上海股票市场的有效性进行了检验 ,得出上海股票市场并不符合CAPM模型这一结论 ,并对此结论进行了分析。