The purpose of the study is to empirically determine the relevance of PPP theory under the traditional arbitrage and the efficient markets (EPPP) frameworks during the recent floating period of the 1980s. Monthly data was collected for fifteen industrial nations from January 1980 to December 1986. The models tested included the short-run PPP, the long-run PPP, the EPPP, the EPPP with deviations from expectations, the forward rates as unbiased estimators of future spot rates, the EPPP and the forward rates, and the EPPP with forward rates and lagged values. A generalized regression method called Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) was employed to test the models. The results support the efficient markets approach to PPP but fail to support the traditional PPP in both the short term and the long term. Moreover, the forward rates are poor and biased predictors of the future spot rates. The random walk hypothesis is generally supported.

The observed use (and indeed tremendous growth in volume) of forward contracts, futures, options, and swaps as hedges against interest rate risk, foreign exchange risk, and commodity price risk indicates that hedging does add value to the firm. The purpose this research was to empirically examine the value of off-balance-sheet hedging. The benefits of off-balance-sheet hedging were found to accrue from reducing (1) taxes, (2) expected financial distress costs, and (3) agency costs. Taxes. Hedging reduces the firm's tax liability by reducing the variability in taxable income. The value of hedging to the firm is a positive function of the convexity of the tax function and the variability of taxable income. Expected Financial Distress Costs. The value of hedging is a positive function of the degree to which hedging reduces the probability of financial distress and the costs of financial distress. Agency Cost. Due to the fact that bondholders and some managers hold fixed claims while shareholders hold variable claims, shareholders desire more risky projects than do bondholders or managers. Hedging reduces this conflict by allowing shareholders to undertake higher risk projects while protecting the holders of fixed claims. Firms can achieve the same benefits of hedging by using alternative …

This empirical study is concerned with the usefulness of proposed supplementary disclosures for oil and gas producers to financial analysts in valuing a company. It is concerned with what supplementary information is being used, to what extent it is being used and which type of information is used most. Three main research procedures are employed. In the first procedure, the Mann-Whitney U Test is applied to determine any significant difference between valuing an oil and gas producing company using basic financial statements and ratio data, and valuing the same company with this information plus the proposed disclosures. The second procedure involves applying the chi-square and Cramer's V statistics to determine whether the disclosure information caused switching in valuation method used for each of the cases. The third procedure tests for significant differences between financial ratios used for each case by employing the test of differences between two proportions. Additional evaluation attempts to determine analysts' perceived usefulness of each of the schedules of the proposed disclosures

This study examines the differential effect of each of the ten largest bank failures on shareholders' wealth of non-failed banks over the period from 1973 through 1984. It examines how contagion and information effects of major bank failures have changed over time. FDIC policy for settling failures has important implications for system stability, and has changed over time. This study's purpose is to provide empirical evidence on the effects of FDIC policy. The FDIC's handling of the Penn Square failure signaled a policy shift and offers a unique opportunity to examine changes in market reactions to large bank failures. The literature on the capital market effects of major bank failures provides limited evidence on the impact of bank failures and related FDIC policy. Most fail to discriminate between contagion and information effects, and conduct analysis on one (or a few) bank failure(s) in the mid-1970s using traditional event study methodology. This study considers multivariate regression (MVRM) an appropriate methodology for bank failures which are likely to have simultaneous impact on non-failed banks. MVRM, which accounts for contemporaneous cross-sectional dependence of residuals, has three advantages over standard residual analysis: no "event clustering" problem, multiple hypotheses tests, and computational efficiency. This study …

The purpose of this study is to investigate the usefulness of statistical decomposition measures in the prediction of industrial bond rating changes. Further, the predictive ability of decomposition measures is compared with multiple discriminant analysis on the same sample. The problem of this study is twofold. It stems in general from the statistical problems associated with current techniques employed in the study of bond ratings and in particular from the lack of attention to the study of bond rating changes. Two main hypotheses are tested in this study. The first is that bond rating changes can be predicted through the use of financial statement data. The second is that decomposition analysis can achieve the same performance as multiple discriminant analysis in duplicating and predicting industrial bond rating changes. To explain and predict industrial bond rating changes, statistical decomposition measures were computed for each company in the sample. Based on these decomposition measures, the two types of analyses performed were (a) a univariate analysis where each decomposition measure was compared with an industry average decomposition measure, and (b) a multivariate analysis where decomposition measures were used as independent variables in a probability linear model. In addition to statistical decomposition analysis, multiple …

This dissertation examines the reaction of common stock prices to changes in bond ratings by Moody's Bond Service. The question is whether an announcement of a re-rating by Moody's is new information. There are only two studies of stock price reaction to bond changes and the results are conflicting. Pinches and Singleton (1978) [PS] concluded that any reaction comes well before the re-rating. Griffin and Sanvicente (1982) [GS] found that their portfolio test indicated that rating changes do convey new information. This was particularly true for downgradings. Both studies used monthly data and neither performed a statistical testing of residual reversals. PS provided a graph of the residuals which indicated the presence of a reversal trend. GS provided no information on this topic. This study, using daily data and the cumulative prediction error technique, finds that bond re-ratings offer new information. The results indicate that the market only partially anticipates the bond change. For the downgrades, the excess return on the announcement day is .6% which is statistically significant. The residuals reverse after the announcement day, but are not statistically significant. The upgrades do not have a significant reaction on the announcement day, but have a statistically significant negative reaction …

The purpose of this study is to examine a two-part hypothesis. The first part is that underdepreciation is the cause of serious financial problems which have beset investor-owned electric utilities in recent years. The second part is that depreciation adjusted for changes in the general level of prices would do much to alleviate these problems.