During periods of increased rates of inflation and the concomitant increase in the level of interest rates, the secondary mortgage market has exhibited a recurring pattern of illiquidity as funds are bid away from the institutions participating in the residential mortgage market. Much of the existing literature and policy addressed to this topic is developed within the framework of the financial disintermediation and credit rationing paradigm. This paper presents an alternative explanation based on the theory of transaction costs and pricing in thin markets.

The weighted average cost of capital (Ko) is presented in virtually all textbooks in financial management and capital budgeting as a practical concept fundamental to the actual selection of optimal financial and investment alternatives. As often employed Ko can be defined as

where

Ko = the weighted average cost of capital,

Ks = the cost of equity capital,

Kb = the cost of debt capital,

S = the market value of the firm's equity,

B = the market value of the firm's debt, and

V = S + B, the total market value of the firm.

The simultaneity of security price determination has been recognized for many years. Lintner [6], Lerner and Carleton [5], Mossin [9], Sharpe [10], Tobin [15], and others have all advocated that securities be treated in a portfolio sense implying security prices are determined simultaneously. The empirical work in finance is just beginning to deal formally with this simultaneity.

Multiasset portfolio selection models stated in terms of the expected utility criterion generally require the evaluation of multiple integrals. This reality has severely hindered attempts towards the development of computation methods to determine optimal portfolio allocations when there are a large number of assets. Aside from special cases, expected utility is not convergent into a simple closed form; the complexity from the point of view of computation is then perhaps most easily appreciated if one realizes that every iteration in a nonlinear program demands the estimation of several integrals (see Ziemba [23] for details). Such calculations are extremely costly when the number of assets is large. It is, consequently, of interest to approximate the expected utility function by a function which is easier to optimize over the set of feasible portfolios.

Traditional models of portfolio selection assume that all assets are traded in competitive markets, so that rates of return to any individual investor are fixed. This paper represents an extension of portfolio theory to the case in which asset markets are not perfectly competitive and rates of return cannot be taken as given. Klein [10] has noted that, when asset markets are imperfect, the separation theorem no longer holds but does not solve explicitly for the relationship between risk and return. Here for simplicity we shall consider the case of the investor who has a monopoly in an asset he creates, so that its risk and return characteristics are determined by the decisions of the portfolio selector and hence are endogenous. It will be shown that even if the market for an asset in the portfolio is imperfectly competitive, as long as the demand curve for the asset is well behaved, the locus of efficient portfolios facing the investor, which is composed of combinations of the riskless asset and the optimal combination of risky assets, will be a concave function, as opposed to a linear function in the competitive case. In other words, the introduction of capital market imperfections does not affect the positive slope of the efficient set of portfolios. Moreover, the expected return on the imperfectly competitive asset will be shown to be easily decomposable into the standard risk premium and a monopoly premium.

In a general sense this analysis has been concerned with the extent of a market and the effect of limiting the extent on the prices of assets in that market. One example of the type of limited market extent with which we have been concerned is provided by nonmarketable assets and another is provided by market segmentation.

Unambiguous statements of the effect of nonmarketable assets and market segmentation on the level of prices require that and be oppossite in sign (unless one or both are zero). Only two cases have been identified where unambiguous statements can be made. The first, the case of constant absolute risk aversion, implies there is no effect of nonmarketable assets or market segmentation on the level of asset prices. The second case, constant relative risk aversion, where the coefficient of relative risk aversion is equal to or less than one, implies that prices are lower in the presence of these imperfections.

Arrow [1] argues that the coefficient of relative risk aversion must “hover around 1.” Thus, if constant relative risk aversion is a reasonable approximation to reality we should accept the implication of the latter case. Certainly, if a choice had to be made, the latter case would be the more palatable of the two. That is, constant relative risk aversion does imply decreasing absolute risk aversion, which appears more acceptable than the hypothesis of constant absolute risk aversion.

The constant relative risk aversion case has implications for such things as the organization and operation of markets and corporate merger decisions. For example, higher margin requirements that inhibit diversification would be expected to lower asset values. Also, as a matter of corporate policy, it would appear that, ceteris paribus, mergers that increase the extent of a market would be preferable to within-market mergers.

We have been concerned with investigating the structure of rate-of-return comovements among major international equity markets. Working with 12 such markets we have analyzed the structural features of the configurations over alternative time periods (one-, three-, five- and ten-year periods) and the intertemporal stability of the configurations.

On the issue of intertemporal stability we found considerable one-year and three-year stability, but somewhat weaker stability in the five-year case. As a measure of stability we used cophenetic correlation coefficients between successive (in time) dendrograms. This technique was described in the methodology section.

We uncovered several interesting structural features. There seems to be a core of international markets that have higher degrees of similarity than the other markets. Furthermore, these markets (the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, West Germany and to a lesser extent, Belgium) may be generally described as relatively well developed and open to international capital flows. There is also an obviously strong tie between the United States and Canadian markets. There are less strong, but identifiable ties between France and Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, and England and Australia. Many of these results parallel Ripley's [14] findings. We also noticed some countries that tend to be least similar to most other countries: Austria and Italy. Ten-year results corroborated these findings.

This study is only descriptive. We have only attempted to identify international equity market structure and structural change. A logical subsequent research area is to explain observed structural properties and the causes of structural change. We hope that our research will help provide some basis for this further analysis.

This paper examined the empirical consequences of explicit consideration of purchasing power risk in portfolio decisions. It was shown that, during a period of significant inflation, the differences between the variance-covariance relations of nominal rates of return and those of real rates of return were sufficiently pronounced to change the composition of investment portfolios. Further, it was shown that the set of real efficient portfolios dominates any investment strategy that ignores purchasing power risk.

The purpose of our paper is to examine the impact of output and asset decisions on the pure equity capitalization rate of a monopolistic firm which faces a stochastic demand curve. Within the confines of a specific set of constraints we derive the following conclusions:

1) when assets are fixed and the task of the firm is to find the shareholder wealth-maximizing output, the capitalization rate is functionally related to the level of output, when Leland's Principle of Increasing Uncertainty (PIU) holds the optimal output will occur when the capitalization rate is increasing.

This project was intended to test the usefulness of the Markowitz-based allocation model of which sampling fluctuations are clearly a possible weakness. Realistic conditions were formulated and a data set was simulated to insure a stable, independent, and normally distributed data set. The methodology was constructed such that the only difference in the portfolio performance results was the number of historical observations to estimate the inputs.

It was found that a minimum of 30 historical observations was required to yield efficient portfolio performance characteristics. It may be argued that this represents a large number of observations, although it is clearly not as large as those of other statistical procedures such as factor analysis or discriminant analysis.

This article addressed only the issue of the number of observations and not the appropriate length, i.e., monthly or quarterly. Dickinson demonstrated that the ratio of variances of two securities influenced the accuracy of the estimates of wi, the proportion of total capital invested in each of the two assets. Changing the length of the observation will change these variance ratios for many assets. A study is currently in progress to trace this effect on subsequent portfolio performance. It is hoped that these results, and those yet to come, will ease the burden of many of the arbitrary assumptions that we are presently forced to make in empirical investigations of efficient portfolio performance.

Empirical research has cast so much doubt on chart readers that most capital theorists have about as much faith in charts as astronomers have in astrology. Certainly there is overwhelming evidence that attempting to predict future price changes on the basis of past price behavior is unproductive. There is, however, another aspect of technical analysis which has received much less attention from academicians. In its narrow form technical analysis seeks to forecast the direction of price movements of individual securities from past price and volume data. A second and somewhat broader type of technical analysis concentrates on the prediction of general market movements and trends relying on a broader set of information. Various market indicators are said to offer signals useful in forecasting future prices. One type seeks to measure investor sentiment through what might be called mood variables. A second type of indicator is more closely related to fundamental factors affecting future supply and demand for securities. Both types of indicators, however, are designed to be used in predicting future market movements rather than the movements of individual stock prices. This is to be contrasted with fundamental analysis which is concerned with predicting future prices of individual securities by analyzing the underlying factors related to the firm's future profitability. Most of the prior work with market indicators takes one or another proposed market indicator and examines the historical relation, between the indicator and some market index such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The findings, based on price movements alone, are that trading on the assumption that a large (small) proportion of increases in stocks' short ratios is bullish (bearish) produced significantly better than expected results at all Alphas tested above .02. This test-by-predictiveness strongly supports the validity of the assumptions.

A test of the components of the short ratio produced no evidence that the success of the ratio as a stock market predictor can be attributed to either of its components singly, i.e., to either changes in short interest or changes in trading volume.

A second test of the assumptions incorporated in the SR Expectations Model consisted of a comparison of model results against buy-and-hold results. In all cases except at Alpha .01 model results exceeded buy-and-hold results–and greatly so at Alphas above .02, thus strongly supporting the validity of the assumptions.

The test against the buy-and-hold “control” standard was then extended to incorporate dividend and commission considerations. These considerations sharply reduced the model's performance. Therefore, an alternate strategy was tested which markedly reduced commissions, offset the opportunity cost of dividends missed when the portfolio was not long stocks, and avoided the explicit dividend drains caused by short positions. This strategy consisted of substituting Treasury Bill holdings for short positions in the basic model. This policy, consisting of switches between Treasury Bills and SSP “stocks” in accordance with Alpha .05 signals produced a terminal portfolio value greater than the buy-and-hold policy even after the introduction of a 30 percent income-tax consideration. Moreover, this higher return was generated with less risk than that inherent in the buy-and-hold policy.

With respect to the optimum filter, it was found that Alpha .11 was best for price predictive purposes, with Alpha .05 a close second, but that once commission considerations are allowed for, Alpha .05 was the optimum filter.

In conclusion, the hypothesis of this study is that when speculative expectations become extremely one-sided, a high probability exists that stock prices will reverse towards the unanticipated direction. This view is consistent with the theory that the stock market is generally efficient, but not perfectly so. A test of a model using changes in short ratios as a measure of shifts in investor expectations is consistent with the hypothesis: returns generated by the model significantly outperform random expectations. The test indicates a systematic tendency for investors to over-discount events when an overwhelming majority share the same optimism (pessimism) about future stock prices.

This article develops a criterion for comparing warrant financing with further common stock financing from the viewpoint of a firm's current stockholders. This criterion is then related to a complementary one presented by Bierman [1] and a condition is imposed on Bierman's cost of warrant financing for warrant financing to be preferred to further stock financing. Finally the article considers the limitations of these criteria and qualitatively discusses risk considerations that influence the attractiveness of warrant financing.

This paper presented a stochastic discounted cash flow model with which mortgage companies can assess the value of a mortgage servicing contract. The model was illustrated with data provided by a group of eight MBC's. Simulation and sensitivity analysis showed the impact of different mortgage amounts, termination distributions, and expected rates of servicing cost increases on the value of a mortgage servicing portfolio. In general, because servicing contracts are long-term fixed revenue arrangements, high rates of servicing cost increases substantially reduce the value of an MBC's servicing portfolio. To the extent that mortgage prepayments are reduced by high inflation rates, the impact of high cost increases on the value of a servicing portfolio is compounded.

This study provides, as a result of comprehensive search, a better description of the intertemporal behaviors of corporate debt policy, comparable to those that exist for dividend policy. Although leverage policy may vary a great deal from firm to firm, we found that: (1) The rather simple partial adjustment model with constant payout ratio to have the best predictive performance and other superior models include the first-order markov process and the historical average leverage ratio; (2) in general, firms seem to operate with a concept of “target leverage ratio,” e.g., target ratio computed from the partial adjustment models, or from historical or industry averages; (3) there is some weak evidence of the presence of unused debt capacity for the total sample; (4) the average speed of adjustment to close the gap between the desired and actual leverage ratio is a respectable 67 percent in the first year (due to the lumpiness of debt issue, individual firms tend to be either under or overadjusted); (5) there are some indications that firms also adjust debt behavior to anticipated future increases or decreases in assets.

There are several areas for future research, for instance, the best debt model could serve as the first stage of a possible two-stage equation in the empirical verification of the MSM's assumption of the independence of the investment decision to the financing decision (e.g., [7]), on a further exploration of how firms' expectations affect debt behavior. Finally, the existence of a rational target leverage ratio should encourage research interest concerning the existence of an empirically testable optimal leverage ratio.

A market can be imperfectly competitive for a variety of reasons; in the context of an auction or a contract awarding, imperfections may stem from the limited number of bidders involved. Bidders, recognizing that their behavior (or that of others) can affect the market outcome, may adopt strategies that are unlikely to lead to a Pareto efficient allocation. Such inefficiencies can occur in the absence of any collusive behavior on the part of bidders. If barriers to bid entry are removed, and bidders are sufficiently homogeneous, the likelihood increases that bids will reflect full (private) valuations of the auctioned goods. Under these conditions Pareto efficient allocations would be guided by a set of minimum prices: a “sale to the highest bidder” would be transacted at a price approximate to the valuation of the second highest bidder, and contracts would be awarded at the competitive supply price. Even when the number of bidders is restricted, auction procedures can be adopted which will insure efficiency to a degree. This efficiency is achieved by changing the motivations of the available bidders, and by providing incentives for bidders to reveal their full valuations of the objects being auctioned. This paper describes a set of auction procedures which achieve these ends.

The prime purpose of the paper is to investigate the portfolio building implications of government transfers. Some general comments are also made with regard to human capital payments. As such this paper can be seen as a generalization and further simplification of the work by Mayers.

This study tests whether a “portfolio effect” exists in a given branch bank; i.e., does the addition of branches reduce the variability of demand deposits for the bank? The approach taken is narrower than that in the usual portfolio selection model. The study measures risk by the intrayear coefficient of variation of average monthly demand deposits. The term “portfolio effect” was defined operationally as a reduction in the overall coefficient of variation of demand deposits through the addition of sets of branches. Relatively few portfolio effects were realized from the chronological addition of sets of branches. The absence of portfolio effects is largely attributable to (1) generally high positive correlations between deposits of the various sets of branches and the defined deposit base and (2) the small size of the sets of branches relative to the base deposits. Further, while the correlations were generally high and positive, they were also serially unstable which suggests they would be poor predictors of future correlations. Based on the experience of this bank, it does not appear that the reduction in demand deposit variability by adding branches is general or consistent enough to facilitate improved management of reserves or selection of branch locations. However, this conclusion does not necessarily imply that the bank should not have undertaken branch expansion. For example, this study does not include an analysis of branch profitability. While the results of this study based on a single branch bank cannot be generalized, they do suggest the need for a more comprehensive analysis of the impact of branching on the variability of demand deposits.

Several studies have investigated the reaction of the stock market to a firm's changing its method of accounting for external reporting purposes. By contrast, this study investigates the reaction of proper subsets of the stock market to changes in accounting methods–specifically, the reaction of the set of investors in the common stock of the firm which has changed its accounting measurement rules.

S-L have derived a simultaneous equation CAPM to offer a robust test for the interdependent assumption of the single equation CAPM. However, their empirical results are subject to the multicollinearity problem associated with 2SLS. For improving their results, several alternative estimation methods are used to estimate a seven-equation system for the oil industry. In accordance with both the multicollinearity criterion and residual analysis, it is found the modified 2SLS is the most appropriate method to be used to estimate the S-L model. From the results obtained from the modified 2SLS, it is shown that the market rate of return still is a relatively important factor in predicting the movement of capital market in the simultaneous equation CAPM.

After applying a better estimation method to the S-L simultaneous equation CAPM, it is shown that the S-L model has given us the interesting interrelationship of capital asset pricing within a particular risk class.