We consider portfolio allocation in which the underlying investment instruments are hedge funds. Benchmarks and conditional-value-at-risk motivate a family of utility functions involving the probability of outperforming a benchmark and expected shortfall from another benchmark. Non-normal return...

This study provides a literature review of academic research related to liquefied natural gas (LNG) hubs development and market integration. Studies show that Asian markets lack a transparent pricing benchmark which exists in North American and European markets. As a result, the formation of...

Hedge funds typically have non-normal return distributions marked by significant positive or negative skewness and high kurtosis. Mean-variance optimization models ignore these higher moments of the return distribution, and thus fail to convince investors who care about the unwanted skewness and...

This paper proposes a novel approach for modeling prepayment rates of individual pools of mortgages. The model incorporates the empirical evidence that prepayment is past dependent via Bayesian methodology. There are many factors that influence the prepayment behavior and for many of them there...

Hedge funds typically have non-normal return distributions marked by significant positive or negative skewness and high kurtosis. Mean-variance optimization models ignore these higher moments of the return distribution. If a mean-variance optimization model suggests significant allocation to...

We consider four utility functions, each of which incorporates a benchmark to better capture the motivations of today's portfolio managers. Assuming instrument returns are normally distributed, we establish conditions undr which optimal portfolios for these utilities are mean-variance efficient...

Nuclear power plants across the United States are reaching the end of their current operating licenses, forcing decision makers to think about the way forward. As they consider the best alternatives for dealing with aging nuclear plants, it is becoming increasingly important to have an accurate...

Management decisions regarding maintenance protocols critically hinge on the underlying probability distribution of the time between failures in most repairable systems. Replacement of the system with a new one resets the system age to zero, whereas a repair does not alter the system age but may...

Management decisions regarding maintenance protocols critically hinge on the underlying probability distribution of the time between failures in most repairable systems. Replacement of the system with a new one resets the system age to zero, whereas a repair does not alter the system age but may...

Using a model for pricing deposit guarantees that treats the bank's investments as a portfolio of default-free bonds and risky loans, the authors push back uncertainty to the level of the borrowing firm and thus are able to explore how factors like firm leverage, loan maturity, and correlation...