Download or read book Strategic Asset Allocation written by John Y. Campbell and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-01-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Academic finance has had a remarkable impact on many financial services. Yet long-term investors have received curiously little guidance from academic financial economists. Mean-variance analysis, developed almost fifty years ago, has provided a basic paradigm for portfolio choice. This approach usefully emphasizes the ability of diversification to reduce risk, but it ignores several critically important factors. Most notably, the analysis is static; it assumes that investors care only about risks to wealth one period ahead. However, many investors—-both individuals and institutions such as charitable foundations or universities—-seek to finance a stream of consumption over a long lifetime. In addition, mean-variance analysis treats financial wealth in isolation from income. Long-term investors typically receive a stream of income and use it, along with financial wealth, to support their consumption. At the theoretical level, it is well understood that the solution to a long-term portfolio choice problem can be very different from the solution to a short-term problem. Long-term investors care about intertemporal shocks to investment opportunities and labor income as well as shocks to wealth itself, and they may use financial assets to hedge their intertemporal risks. This should be important in practice because there is a great deal of empirical evidence that investment opportunities—-both interest rates and risk premia on bonds and stocks—-vary through time. Yet this insight has had little influence on investment practice because it is hard to solve for optimal portfolios in intertemporal models. This book seeks to develop the intertemporal approach into an empirical paradigm that can compete with the standard mean-variance analysis. The book shows that long-term inflation-indexed bonds are the riskless asset for long-term investors, it explains the conditions under which stocks are safer assets for long-term than for short-term investors, and it shows how labor income influences portfolio choice. These results shed new light on the rules of thumb used by financial planners. The book explains recent advances in both analytical and numerical methods, and shows how they can be used to understand the portfolio choice problems of long-term investors.

Download or read book Public Policies and Household Saving written by James M. Poterba and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The declining U.S. national saving rate has prompted economists and policymakers to ask, should the federal government encourage household saving, and if so, through which policies? In order to better understand saving programs, this volume provides a systematic and detailed description of saving policies in the G-7 industrialized nations: the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Each of the seven chapters focuses on one country and addresses a core set of topics: types of accumulated household savings and debt; tax policies toward capital income; saving in the form of public and private pensions, including Social Security and similar programs; saving programs that receive special tax treatment; and saving through insurance. This detailed summary of the saving incentives of the G-7 nations will be an invaluable reference for policymakers and academics interested in personal saving behavior.

Download or read book Asset Pricing and Portfolio Choice Theory written by Kerry Back and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2010 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the classical results on single-period, discrete-time, and continuous-time models of portfolio choice and asset pricing. It also treats asymmetric information, production models, various proposed explanations for the equity premium puzzle, and topics important for behavioral finance.

Download or read book Mean Variance Analysis in Portfolio Choice and Capital Markets written by Harry M. Markowitz and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2000-02-15 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1952, Harry Markowitz published "Portfolio Selection," a paper which revolutionized modern investment theory and practice. The paper proposed that, in selecting investments, the investor should consider both expected return and variability of return on the portfolio as a whole. Portfolios that minimized variance for a given expected return were demonstrated to be the most efficient. Markowitz formulated the full solution of the general mean-variance efficient set problem in 1956 and presented it in the appendix to his 1959 book, Portfolio Selection. Though certain special cases of the general model have become widely known, both in academia and among managers of large institutional portfolios, the characteristics of the general solution were not presented in finance books for students at any level. And although the results of the general solution are used in a few advanced portfolio optimization programs, the solution to the general problem should not be seen merely as a computing procedure. It is a body of propositions and formulas concerning the shapes and properties of mean-variance efficient sets with implications for financial theory and practice beyond those of widely known cases. The purpose of the present book, originally published in 1987, is to present a comprehensive and accessible account of the general mean-variance portfolio analysis, and to illustrate its usefulness in the practice of portfolio management and the theory of capital markets. The portfolio selection program in Part IV of the 1987 edition has been updated and contains exercises and solutions.

Download or read book Recalibrating Retirement Spending and Saving written by John Ameriks and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Baby Boomers make the transition into their 60s, they have focused policymakers and the media's attention onto how this generation will manage the retirement phase of its lifetime. This volume acknowledges that many, though not all, in this older cohort have accumulated substantial assets, so for them, the question is what will they do with what they have? We offer a detailed exploration of how people entering retirement will deploy their accumulated assets in the near and long term, so to best meet their myriad spending, investment, and other objectives. The book offers readers an invaluable study of emerging issues regarding assets and expectations on the verge of retirement, including uncertainty regarding life expectancy and morbidity. It is composed of chapters from a distinguished set of authors including a Nobel Laureate and a wonderful mix of academics and practitioners from the legal, financial, and economic fields. This volume represents an invaluable addition to the Pension Research Council / Oxford University Press series. It will be especially useful for analysts and consumers concerned with ways to position, invest, manage, and spend retirement assets; financial advisers and academics debating ways to effectively manage assets in retirement; and lawyers and policy experts evaluating regulation for the retirement payout marketplace.

Download or read book Investors and Markets written by William F. Sharpe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-07 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nobel Prize-winning financial economist William Sharpe shows that investment professionals cannot make good portfolio choices unless they understand the determinants of asset prices." -- Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Health and Inequality written by Owen O'Donnell and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2013-12-12 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains methodological and empirical research on the measurement and causes of health inequality from leading experts in health economics and economic inequality. It is essential reading for researchers working on health inequality and provides an immediate reconnaissance of the frontiers for those entering this exciting field.

Download or read book Portfolio Decision Analysis written by Ahti Salo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-08-12 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Portfolio Decision Analysis: Improved Methods for Resource Allocation provides an extensive, up-to-date coverage of decision analytic methods which help firms and public organizations allocate resources to 'lumpy' investment opportunities while explicitly recognizing relevant financial and non-financial evaluation criteria and the presence of alternative investment opportunities. In particular, it discusses the evolution of these methods, presents new methodological advances and illustrates their use across several application domains. The book offers a many-faceted treatment of portfolio decision analysis (PDA). Among other things, it (i) synthesizes the state-of-play in PDA, (ii) describes novel methodologies, (iii) fosters the deployment of these methodologies, and (iv) contributes to the strengthening of research on PDA. Portfolio problems are widely regarded as the single most important application context of decision analysis, and, with its extensive and unique coverage of these problems, this book is a much-needed addition to the literature. The book also presents innovative treatments of new methodological approaches and their uses in applications. The intended audience consists of practitioners and researchers who wish to gain a good understanding of portfolio decision analysis and insights into how PDA methods can be leveraged in different application contexts. The book can also be employed in courses at the post-graduate level.

Download or read book Portfolio Selection and Asset Pricing written by Shouyang Wang and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our daily life, almost every family owns a portfolio of assets. This portfolio could contain real assets such as a car, or a house, as well as financial assets such as stocks, bonds or futures. Portfolio theory deals with how to form a satisfied portfolio among an enormous number of assets. Originally proposed by H. Markowtiz in 1952, the mean-variance methodology for portfolio optimization has been central to the research activities in this area and has served as a basis for the development of modem financial theory during the past four decades. Follow-on work with this approach has born much fruit for this field of study. Among all those research fruits, the most important is the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) proposed by Sharpe in 1964. This model greatly simplifies the input for portfolio selection and makes the mean-variance methodology into a practical application. Consequently, lots of models were proposed to price the capital assets. In this book, some of the most important progresses in portfolio theory are surveyed and a few new models for portfolio selection are presented. Models for asset pricing are illustrated and the empirical tests of CAPM for China's stock markets are made. The first chapter surveys ideas and principles of modeling the investment decision process of economic agents. It starts with the Markowitz criteria of formulating return and risk as mean and variance and then looks into other related criteria which are based on probability assumptions on future prices of securities.

Download or read book The Measurement and Valuation of Health Status Using EQ 5D A European Perspective written by Richard Brooks and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2003-04-30 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: EQ-5D from the EuroQol Group is a standardised, non-disease-specific instrument for describing and valuing health. It is in widespread use in many countries and has been applied in many different settings. EQ-5D is now an integral feature of many clinical trials and is increasingly used in population health surveys. This book reports on the results of the European Union-funded EQ-net project which furthered the development of EQ-5D in the key areas of valuation, application and translation. The primary effort concentrated on harmonising and integrating the results of the various EuroQol valuation projects. Most importantly, the book includes a set of VAS-based preference weights for all the EQ-5D health states based on cross-European EQ-5D data. This book provides the most comprehensive account to date of the EuroQol Group endeavour. It will appeal to clinicians, nurses, health services researchers, health economists, those responsible for audit and quality assurance, public health specialists and managers in health care institutions, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Download or read book Portfolio Optimization and Performance Analysis written by Jean-Luc Prigent and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2007-05-07 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In answer to the intense development of new financial products and the increasing complexity of portfolio management theory, Portfolio Optimization and Performance Analysis offers a solid grounding in modern portfolio theory. The book presents both standard and novel results on the axiomatics of the individual choice in an uncertain framework, cont

Download or read book Hedge Funds written by Vikas Agarwal and published by Now Publishers Inc. This book was released on 2005 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hedge Funds summarizes the academic research on hedge funds and commodity trading advisors. The hedge fund industry has grown tremendously over the recent years. According to some industry estimates, hedge funds have increased from $39 million in 1990 to about $972 million in 2004 and the total number of hedge funds has gone up from 610 to 7,436 over the same period. At the same time, hedge fund strategies have changed significantly. In 1990 the macro strategy dominated the industry while in 2004 the equity hedge strategy had the largest share of the market. There has also been a shift in the type of investor in hedge funds. In the early 1990's the typical investor was a high net-worth individual investor, today the typical investor is an institutional investor. Thus, the hedge fund market has not only grown tremendously, but the nature of the market has changed. Despite the enormous growth of this industry, there is limited information available on hedge funds. As a result, there is a need for rigorous research from both the investors' and regulators' point of view. Investors need research to better understand their investment and their risk exposure. This research also helps investors recognize the extent of diversification benefits hedge funds offer in combination with investments in traditional asset classes, such as stocks and bonds. Regulators can use this research to identify situations where regulation may be needed to protect investors' interests and to understand the impact hedge funds trading strategies have on the stability of the financial markets. The first part of Hedge Funds summarizes hedge fund performance, including comparisons of risk-return characteristics of hedge funds with those of mutual funds, factors driving hedge fund returns, and persistence in hedge fund performance. The second part reviews research regarding the unique contractual features and characteristics of hedge funds and their influence on the risk-return tradeoffs. The third part reviews the role of hedge funds in a portfolio including the extent of diversification benefits and limitations of standard mean-variance framework for asset allocation. Finally, the authors summarize the research on the biases in hedge fund databases.

Download or read book Moral Hazard in Health Insurance written by Amy Finkelstein and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing the challenge of covering heath care expenses—while minimizing economic risks. Moral hazard—the tendency to change behavior when the cost of that behavior will be borne by others—is a particularly tricky question when considering health care. Kenneth J. Arrow’s seminal 1963 paper on this topic (included in this volume) was one of the first to explore the implication of moral hazard for health care, and Amy Finkelstein—recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic—here examines this issue in the context of contemporary American health care policy. Drawing on research from both the original RAND Health Insurance Experiment and her own research, including a 2008 Health Insurance Experiment in Oregon, Finkelstein presents compelling evidence that health insurance does indeed affect medical spending and encourages policy solutions that acknowledge and account for this. The volume also features commentaries and insights from other renowned economists, including an introduction by Joseph P. Newhouse that provides context for the discussion, a commentary from Jonathan Gruber that considers provider-side moral hazard, and reflections from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow. “Reads like a fireside chat among a group of distinguished, articulate health economists.” —Choice

Download or read book Portfolio Risk Analysis written by Gregory Connor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Portfolio risk forecasting has been and continues to be an active research field for both academics and practitioners. Almost all institutional investment management firms use quantitative models for their portfolio forecasting, and researchers have explored models' econometric foundations, relative performance, and implications for capital market behavior and asset pricing equilibrium. Portfolio Risk Analysis provides an insightful and thorough overview of financial risk modeling, with an emphasis on practical applications, empirical reality, and historical perspective. Beginning with mean-variance analysis and the capital asset pricing model, the authors give a comprehensive and detailed account of factor models, which are the key to successful risk analysis in every economic climate. Topics range from the relative merits of fundamental, statistical, and macroeconomic models, to GARCH and other time series models, to the properties of the VIX volatility index. The book covers both mainstream and alternative asset classes, and includes in-depth treatments of model integration and evaluation. Credit and liquidity risk and the uncertainty of extreme events are examined in an intuitive and rigorous way. An extensive literature review accompanies each topic. The authors complement basic modeling techniques with references to applications, empirical studies, and advanced mathematical texts. This book is essential for financial practitioners, researchers, scholars, and students who want to understand the nature of financial markets or work toward improving them.

Download or read book The Individual and the Welfare State written by Axel Börsch-Supan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-04-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our health, our income and our social networks at older ages are the consequence of what has happened to us over the course of our lives. The situation at age 50+ reflects our own decisions as well as many environmental factors, especially interventions by the welfare state. This book explores the richness of 28,000 life histories in thirteen European countries, collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Combining these data with a comprehensive account of European welfare state interventions provides a unique opportunity to answer the important public policy questions of our time – how the welfare state affects people’s incomes, housing, families, retirement, volunteering and health. The overarching theme of the welfare state creates a book of genuinely interdisciplinary analyses, a valuable resource for economists, gerontologists, historians, political scientists, public health analysts, and sociologists alike.

Download or read book Growing Older in America written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Financial Risk Tolerance A Psychometric Review written by John E. Grable and published by CFA Institute Research Foundation. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This content provides financial analysts, investment professionals, and financial planners with a review of how financial risk-tolerance tests can and should be evaluated. It begins by clarifying terms related to risk taking and is followed by a broad overview of two important measurement terms: validity and reliability. It concludes with examples for practice.