This paper analyses the determinants of variation in the yield spread (credit spread) between government bonds and corporate bonds in Japan's bond market after 1997. The authors conduct empirical tests on the relationship between credit spreads and several economic and financial variables. A key finding is that default risk and the overall financial situation in Japan were the most significant ...

In this paper we study risk and liquidity management decisions within an insurance firm. Risk management corresponds to decisions regarding proportional reinsurance, whereas liquidity management has two components: distribution of dividends and costly equity issuance. Contingent on whether proportional or fixed costs of reinvestment are considered, singular stochastic control or stochastic impu...

Inflation-protected securities are bonds with unique investment characteristics. These securities represent a relatively new type of financial asset in the United States, where the government first issued Treasury Inflation-Indexed Securities (also called Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS) in January 1997. The TIPS market has experienced rapid growth: Its total value had climbed ...

BACKGROUND Medical records are kept in the interest of both the patient and clinician. Proper filing of patient's medical records ensures easy retrieval and contributes to decreased patient waiting time at the hospital and continuity of care. This paper reports on an intervention study to address the issue of misfiling and multiple patient folders in a health facility. DESIGN Intervention stu...

Governments borrow funds to finance the excess of cash payments or interest payments over receipts, usually by issuing fixed income debt and index-linked debt. The goal of this work is to propose a stochastic optimization-based approach to determine the composition of the portfolio issued over a series of government auctions for the fixed income debt, to minimize the cost of servicing debt whil...

We provide sufficient conditions for the feasibility of a Pareto-improving fiscal policy when risk-free interest rate on government bonds is below growth rate. do so in class incomplete markets models pioneered by Bewley-Huggett-Aiyagari, but we allow an arbitrary amount ex ante heterogeneity terms preferences and income risk. consider both case dynamic inefficiency as well more plausible effic...

This paper integrates elements from the theory of agency, the theory of property rights and the theory of finance to develop a theory of the ownership structure of the firm. We define the concept of agency costs, show its relationship to the ‘separation and control’ issue, investigate the nature of the agency costs generated by the existence of debt and outside equity, demonstrate who bears cos...

Using data from the IMF Coordinated Portfolio Investment Surveys conducted in 2001, we analyze the determinants of 31 countries’ international equity holdings. We show that investors in all countries underweight U.S. equities in their portfolios, many by more than they underweight foreign equities in general. Such behavior is surprising given the common perception of the United States as a desi...