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Provides the first empirical time series analysis of commercial mortgage‐backed securities (CMBS) prices using a proprietary data set of 15 senior tranche securities. Postulates and tests the hypothesis that nonstationary CMBS and corporate bond prices are cointegrated since CMBS are priced analogous to corporate bonds. States that given the emerging status of the CMBS market, price data is limited to less than three years. To overcome the low power of unit root and cointegration methodology for short data sets, appeals to the concept of cointegration in heterogeneous panels advanced by Pedroni (1995). Claims the presence of cointegration between CMBS and corporate bond prices confirms that the stationary first difference in CMBS and corporate bond prices must be modelled in an error correction framework (ECM). Further states the sensitivity of CMBS price changes to changes in the default probability, proxied by the market value of loans to property value, is tested in a simple first order approximation ECM framework. The results suggest that senior tranche CMBS which comprise no more than 70 per cent are immune to the risk from default loss and supports the predictions in Childs et al. (1996).

Are real estate appraisals based on fundamentals that determine the value of the real estate or on offer price? Does this question really matter? In a game of moral hazard with hidden information, we examine an appraiser’s incentives in conducting an appraisal. We find that a moral hazard problem can arise if the mortgagee rewards the appraiser with future business for successful appraisals. An appraiser may be willing to overstate the value of a property if the lender wants him to do so. Additionally, we define the conditions under which the moral hazard problem actually makes all of the players better or no worse off. We argue that the subjective judgment of an appraiser may be Pareto improving. Thus, excessive regulation of the appraisal industry or finer tuned quantitative models that constrain subjective judgment may actually reduce the gains of real estate trade.

This paper presents the first known non‐proprietary empirical examination of the relationship between Commercial Mortgage Backed Security (CMBS) pricing. CMBS prices are examined as a function of the “moneyness” of the default option, the age of the security, the interest rate, interest rate volatility, property price volatility, amortization features and yield curve slope utilizing a proprietary data set of monthly prices on 40 CMBS securities. We find that though the senior tranche CMBS in the sample are effectively immune from default loss per se, they are not immune from early return of principal and resulting duration shift implied by increasing default probabilities. Thus, they behave very much like residential mortgage backed securities in that discount security prices are positively related to explanatory variables associated with potential shifts in duration. As a result, senior tranche CMBS prices increase with explanatoryd factors that raise the likelihood of default such as property volatility and loan to value ratio whereas CMBS prices decrease with variables that lower default probability such as amortization. These empirical results fit well with existing theoretical models of multi‐tranche CMBS pricing and models of commercial mortgage default and suggest that senior tranche CMBS may embody elements of risk that justify their seemingly rich spreads to similar duration corporate securities.

Online courses and self-directed and asynchronous learning may not be the best for everyone. Individuals possess a number of different learning styles and life circumstances when they enter higher education. Technology is but one answer to addressing these diverse needs and providing choices to students. Technology should be employed in a way that does not replace this system of choice but enhances it and provides individuals with other opportunities for achieving educational goals. The ideal for higher education lies somewhere in-between the purely digital and purely traditional modes of educational delivery. Lost in this capitulation of higher education to the enrollments of distance education is student success. This chapter will explore challenges to distance education student retention and persistence, disseminate the theoretical construct of the Dynamic Student Development Metatheodel, and apply specific student success strategies to distance education. These strategies include intrusive advising and asynchronous advising techniques. This chapter will conclude with how these advising techniques and strategies can facilitate increased student persistence through engagement with academic advisors using asynchronous approaches that move beyond the traditional temporal, didactic strategies employed by most higher education institutions.

The use of sequence and structure databanks is examined in relation to their application in some of the main branches of protein studies. Also the question of availability is addressed by means of presenting some information on current sequence and structure databanks. Increasingly research in molecular science requires joint access to both sequence and structure databases, and the reasons for this development, together with some of the methods for integrated access, are analysed.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

WHEN these words will be read, those who do so will know the worst—and the best—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done to them. We, not having a crystal ball, nor much faith in such, are thereby handicapped for we must write only days before the speech is given.

This paper aims to extend existing research in relation to both the importance of volume effects within housing markets and the specific behaviour of the London housing market. A detailed borough-level examination is undertaken of the relationships between volume, house prices and house price volatility. Support for alternative housing market theories, the degree of heterogeneity in house price behaviour across boroughs and the extent to which housing displays differing properties to other financial assets are examined.

Correlation analyses, causality testing and volatility modelling are undertaken in extended forms which synthesise and extend approaches within the housing, economics and finance literatures. The various modelling and testing techniques are supplemented via the use of alternative variable transformations to evaluate housing market behaviour in detail.

Novel findings are provided concerning both volume effects within housing markets generally and the specific properties of London housing market. Evidence concerning bubbles, the volatility-reducing effects of volume, the importance of geographical and price-related factors underlying the relationship between volume and both house price growth and volatility and the presence of asymmetric adjustment in the London housing market are all provided. The extent and nature of the support available for alternative housing market theories are evaluated.

The volatility-reducing effects of volume within housing markets, along with volume effects and the presence of asymmetric adjustment within the London housing market are examined for the first time. New empirical evidence on the support for alternative housing market theories and the differing empirical characteristics of housing relative to other financial assets are presented.