The arbitrage-free term structure model of Heath, Jarrow and Morton is one of the standard tools for the theoretical analysis of fixed income securities and their associated derivatives. A specific HJM model is fully determined by a choice of volatility structure. This is attributed to the...

A traditional model for financial asset prices is that of a solution of a stochastic differential equation, driven by Brownian motion and Lebesgue measure; that is, a standard diffusion. The classic Black-Scholes model is a special case of this rubric. In some situations, however, such a model is...

The importance of skewness and kurtosis in the return generating process is assessed by examining the out-of-sample forecasting power of three different Exponential GARCH models that assume the conditional errors are generated by a normal distribution, a generalized error distribution, and a...

The Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) was proposed by Ross (1976) as an alternative to the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) for computing the theoretical price of freely traded securities. The APT is based on the premise of linear return generating factors, rather than on the frequently...

Most discrete time literature uses the beta that results from a regression of an asset's simple returns on various factors to quantify risk. The departing point for this thesis is the consistent use of log-returns. When log-returns are considered, the relevant measure of systematic risk becomes...

The purpose of this thesis is to examine recent behavior of the Japanese stock market from 1975 through 1995. The goal of this study is to provide insight into the particular behaviors observed and document possible explanations in light of the work presented. Specific contributions are listed...

Convention travel has been growing rapidly throughout the worldin recent years and becoming a critical component of the hospitality andtravel industry. Hosting of conventions, especially internationalconventions, can be used by host countries as part of a strategicmarketing plan to publicize...

This paper constructs a model of long-run performance for SMEs that have received venture capital backing. The model explains performance by financial structure. FAME data are used for estimating performance equations over the period 1989 to 2004 for UK businesses in their post-investment...