infonet-economy

Multistage stochastic programs with continuous underlying distributions involve the obstacle of high-dimensional integrals where the integrands' values again are given by solutions of stochastic programs. A common solution technique consists of discretizing the support of the original distributions leading to scenario trees and corresponding LPs which are ? up to a certain size...

Venture capitalists (VCs) not only finance but also add value to start-up companies. Advising firms is time consuming and creates a trade-off between intensity of advice and portfolio size. We jointly determine the optimal number of portfolio companies and the intensity of managerial advice. Diminishing returns to advice per firm call for a larger portfolio. With progressively...

Little is known on the existence of negative relative demand shocks against low-skilled workers on a ‘US-style' deregulated labour market with a ‘German-style' vocational (apprenticeship) education system. Switzerland provides an appealing testing ground to investigate this question. Traditionally a ‘zero unemployment' economy, Switzerland has seen an unprecedented...

The analysis of monthly exchange rates is carried out using a model of McCallum, which is based on the concept of Rational Expectations. Applying the model to the CHF/USD exchange rate starting a misspecification analysis, the RE component appears to be a weak point of the model. The theory of rational beliefs of M. Kurz generalizes the RE concept introducing special consideration of...

In Part I the author was concerned with modeling the monthly logarithmicnCHF/USD exchange rate, ''s''. He rejected a model proposed by B.T.nMcCallum. Searching for a more appropriate framework a story by P. DenGrauwe was introduced, bringing complex cognitive processes and socialnpractices into the picture.nThis paper treats again P. De Grauwe's story,...

We suggest a simple asset market model in which we analyze competitive and strategic behaviornsimultaneously. If for competitive behavior two-fund separation holds across periods then itnalso holds for strategic behavior. In this case the relative prices of the assets do not dependnon whether agents behave strategically or competitively. Those agents acting strategically willnhowever...

This paper uses recent data for Germany and a new outcome variable to assess the consequences of parental separation on the well-being of youths. In particular, it is considered how subjective well-being, elicited from an ordinal 11-point general life satisfaction question, differs between youths living in intact and non-intact families, holding many other potential determinants of...

The ongoing deregulation of electricity markets worldwide has a major impact on the power industry. New price risks require new risk management tools and new methods for the valuation of generation and transmission assets as well as existing (physical) electricity contracts. As far as risk management is concerned, many derivative instruments have been designed to hedge against spot...