These lecture notes are about financial innovations. We ask why are there some innovation and how is an innovative idea realized. This forces us to consider practical and structural aspects (regulations, taxation, markets) as key drivers of innovations and also basic formal aspects in valuation....

Farinelli and Tibiletti (F-T) ratio, a general risk-reward performance measurement ratio, is popular due to its simplicity and yet generality that both Omega ratio and upside potential ratio are its special cases. The F-T ratios are ratios of average gains to average losses with respect to a...

The framework of minimum-variance hedging rests on a highly restrictive foundation. The objective of variance minimization is only justifiable when variance coincides with expected squared forecast error. Nevertheless, the classical framework is routinely applied when the condition fails, giving...

The framework of minimum-variance hedging rests on a restrictive foundation. This study shows that the objective of variance minimization is only justifiable when variance coincides with expected squared forecast error. Nevertheless, the classical framework is routinely applied when the...

Farinelli and Tibiletti (2008) propose a general risk-reward performance measurement ratio. Due to its simplicity and generality, the F-T ratios have gained much attentions. F-T ratios are ratios of average gains to average losses with respect to a target, each raised by some power index. Omega...

This paper extends the theory between Kappa ratio and stochastic dominance (SD) and risk-seeking SD (RSD) by establishing several relationships between first- and higher-order risk measures and (higher-order) SD and RSD. We first show the sufficient relationship between the (n+1)-order SD and...

This dissertation explores several aspects of the theory in industrial organization.The first chapter builds a model with two cost asymmetric firms who not only have Cournot competition in the spot market but also have the opportunity to trade forward contracts. It is shown that with forward...

When selling divisible goods such as energy contracts or emission allowances, should the entire supply be auctioned all at once or should it be spread over a sequence of auctions? How does the expected revenue in a sequence of uniform price auctions compare to the expected revenue in a single...

When central banks announce cuts to future interest rates, the expected costs of government debt service decrease, generating additional resources in future budgets. This paper demonstrates that if the rational-expectations assumption is dropped, fiscal authority can exploit those gains by...

We consider economic obstacles that limit the reliability and accuracy of value-at-risk (VaR). Investors who manage large market transactions should take into account the impact of the randomness of large trade volumes on predictions of price probability and VaR assessments. We introduce...