We consider longand medium-term production planning and hedging in a hydropower system under price and inflow uncertainty. The price uncertainty is modeled with a multidimensional forward curve model that considers time dependant spot volatility, the volatility curve’s maturity effect, and the forward curve’s correlation structure. We give a simple and intuitive parameterization for the optimal...

This paper extends the investigation of the effect of managerial motives on hedging policy. I utilize a proxy variable that incorporates CEO incentives to increase risk relative to incentives to increase stock price. The variable is directly measured using observed characteristics of CEO portfolios of stock and option holdings. Furthermore, CEO risk-taking incentives are modeled as a choice var...

In 2003, trading of commodity futures shifted from single commodity, regional exchanges to national exchanges that trade multiple commodities. This paper examines price discovery and hedging effectiveness of commodity futures after this change and concludes that,on average, futures prices do discover information relatively efficiently,but helps to manage risk less efficiently. The paper uses th...

In meetings where important decisions get made, what items receive more attention may influence the outcome. We examine how different types of rhetorical (de-)emphasis — including hedges, superlatives, and contrastive conjunctions — correlate with what gets revisited later, controlling for item frequency and speaker. Our data consists of transcripts of recurring meetings of the Federal Reserve’...

This paper investigates the impact of hedging activities on U.S. export pricing. A theoretical framework of export pricing model with a hedging component was derived to test the hypothesis via exchange rate pass-through. The hypothesis is that a firm with a high (low) hedging engagement would have a low (normal) degree of exchange rate pass-through, ceteris paribus. Two measurements of the hedg...

This paper focuses on how scientific information can make more effective contributions to the public policy of natural resources and the environment. Scientific information can play a crucial role in reining in special interest politics, but it can also be abused, rendering scientific inputs into the policy process ineffective. Natural resource policy often reflects the politics of sleight of h...

The future development of the energy sector is rife with uncertainties. They concern virtually the entire energy chain, from resource extraction to conversion technologies, energy demand, and the stringency of future environmental policies. Investment decisions today need thus not only to be cost-effective from the present perspective, but have to take into account also the imputed future risks...

Effective hedging strategies for variable annuities are crucial for insurance companies in preventing potentially large losses. We consider discrete hedging of options embedded in guarantees with ratchet features, under both equity (including jump) risk and interest rate risk. Since discrete hedging and the underlying model considered lead to an incomplete market, we compute hedging strategies ...

We consider the problem of dynamically allocating production capacity between two products to minimize the average inventory and backorder costs per unit time in a make-to-stock single machine system. Using sample path comparisons and dynamic programming, we give a characterization of the optimal hedging point policy for a certain region of the state space. The characterization is simple enough...

Given uncertainty in long-term carbon reduction goals, how much non-carbon generation should be developed in the near-term? This research investigates the optimal balance between the risk of overinvesting in non-carbon sources that are ultimately not needed and the risk of underinvesting in non-carbon sources and subsequently needing to reduce carbon emissions dramatically. We employ a novel fr...