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Nowadays businesses tend to compete with rivals by improving capability to meet customer demands. One of the key to improve logistics efficiency of a firm is to select appropriate supplier. In the past, to select the most suitable supplier, most people evaluated performance by using average performance or variance from historical data but did not mentioned skewness. In other words, skewness impact on supplier performance is ignored by researchers and buyers. In fact, supplier with greatest average performance does not confirm to be the most suitable one because of uncertainties which make its performance skew either to the left or right, i.e., lower or higher than expectation. Therefore, this empirical study aims to discover and determine the important role of skewness on supplier selection problem. After identifying influential criteria on supplier selection, we analyze skewness effect on suppliers’ performance in each criterion by surveying real data of suppliers’ performances. Skewness effect can be rated in 3 levels; no effect, moderately effect, and highly effect. The results show that, there is only one criterion with no skewness effect, which is price. Criteria which have high skewed performance, for both of medium-sized and large-sized buyers, are lead time, product quality and reliability, and on-time delivery. Also, skewness has higher effect on suppliers’ performance of medium-sized buyers than large-sized buyers. The conclusion surprisingly shows that, skewness is the best index to distinguish between good and bad suppliers, while mean is the worst index.

Standard multivariate tests of mean variance efficiency (MVE) have been criticised on the grounds that they require regression residuals to have a multivariate normal distribution. Generally, the existing evidence suggests that the normality assumption is questionable, even for monthly returns. MacKinlay and Richardson (1991) developed a generalised method of moments (GMM) framework which provides tests which are valid under much weaker distributional assumptions. They examined monthly US data formed into size based portfolios, for mean‐variance efficiency relative to the Sharpe‐Lintner CAPM. They found that inferences regarding mean‐variance efficiency can be sensitive to the test considered. In this paper we further investigate their GMM tests using monthly Australian data over the period 1974 to 1994. We extend upon their analysis to consider an alternative version of their GMM test and also to examine a zero‐beta version of the CAPM. Similar to the US case, our results also indicate sensitivity of inferences to the tests used. Finally, while we find that the GMM tests generally provide rejection of mean‐variance efficiency, tests involving the zero‐beta CAPM, particularly when a value‐weighted market index is used, prove less prone to rejection.

The paper uses 101 years of Chilean and international financial assets returns to investigate mean-variance optimal portfolio allocations. The key conclusion is that the share of international unhedged investments is substantial even in minimum risk portfolios (20%), unless the period 1980–2002 is assumed to be drawn from a different distribution and previous history is disregarded. In addition to that, the paper finds that mean-variance optimal investors would have generated substantial demand for an asset replicating the return profile of an efficient pay-as-you-go pension scheme. Labour income and departures from log-normality of returns might, however, affect the latter conclusion.

This paper aims to perform an analytical analysis on portfolio allocation when a tracking error volatility (TEV) constraint holds, drawing specific attention to the portfolio efficiency issue. Indeed, it is well known that investors can assign part of their funds to asset managers who are given the task of beating a benchmark portfolio. However, the risk management office often imposes a TEV constraint to the asset managers’ activity to maintain the portfolio risk near to the risk of the benchmark. This situation could lead asset managers to select non efficient portfolios in the total return and absolute risk perspective. However, the risk management office can impose further constraints, such as on maximum variance or maximum value at risk (VaR) to maintain the overall portfolio risk under control.

First the authors define the TEV constrained-efficient frontier (ECTF), a set of TEV constrained portfolios that are mean–variance efficient. Second, they define two new portfolio frontiers analyzing how the imposition of a maximum variance or maximum VaR restriction can reduce the ECTF. Third, they investigate the feasibility of such portfolio frontiers and their relationships.

The authors find that variance or VaR constraint can force asset managers to pursue portfolio efficiency.

This is a practically important issue given that asset managers often receive a constraint on TEV from the risk management office, but the risk management office does not ask them to minimize the TEV as often assumed in the optimizations performed in the literature on this topic.

This chapter investigates the relative magnitude of the benefits of global diversification from the viewpoint of domestic investors in various countries by forming time-rolling efficient frontiers. To enhance feasibility of asset allocation strategies, the constraints of short-sales and over-weighting investments are taken into account. The empirical results suggest that local investors in less developed countries, particularly in Latin America, East Asia, and Southern Europe, comparatively benefit more from global diversification. Investors in the countries of civic-law origin tend to benefit more from global investment than the ones in the common-law states. Although the global market has become more integrated over the past decades, diversification benefits for domestic investors declined but did not vanish. The results of this chapter are useful for asset management professionals to determine target markets to promote the sales of international funds.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the best conditional asset pricing model for the Tokyo Stock Exchange sample by utilizing long‐run daily data. It aims to investigate whether there are any other firm‐specific variables that can explain abnormal returns of the estimated asset pricing model.

The individual firm sample was used to conduct various cross‐sectional tests of conditional asset pricing models, at the same time as using test portfolios in order to confirm the mean variance efficiency of basic unconditional models.

The paper's multifactor models in unconditional forms are rejected, with the exception of the five‐factor model. Further, the five‐factor model is better overall than the Fama and French model and other alternative models, according to both the Gibbons, Ross, and Shanken test and the Hansen and Jagannathan distance measure test. Next, using the final conditional five‐factor model as the de facto model, it was determined that the turnover ratio and the size can consistently predict Jensen's alphas. The book‐to‐market ratio (BM) and the past one‐year returns can also significantly predict the alpha, albeit to a lesser extent.

In the literature related to Japanese data, there has never been a comprehensive test of conditional asset pricing models using the long‐run data of individual firms. The conditional asset pricing model derived for this study has led to new findings about the predictability of past one‐year returns and the turnover ratio.

Since equity markets have a dynamic nature, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of a revision procedure for domestic and international portfolios, and provides an empirical selection strategy for optimal diversification from an American investor's point of view. This paper considers the impact of estimation errors on the optimization processes in financial portfolios.

This paper introduces the concept of portfolio resampling using Monte Carlo method. Statistical inferences methodology is applied to construct the sample acceptance regions and confidence regions for the resampled portfolios needing revision. Tracking error variance minimization (TEVM) problem is used to define the tracking error efficient frontiers (TEEF) referring to Roll (1992). This paper employs a computation method of the periodical after revision return performance level of the dynamic diversification strategies considering the transaction cost.

The main finding is that the global portfolio diversification benefits exist for the domestic investors, in both the mean-variance and tracking error analysis. Through TEEF, the dynamic analysis indicates that domestic dynamic diversification outperforms international major and emerging diversification strategies. Portfolio revision appears to be of no systematic benefit. Depending on the revision of the weights of the assets in the portfolio and the transaction costs, the revision policy can negatively affect the performance of an investment strategy. Considering the transaction costs of portfolios revision, the results of the return performance computation suggest the dominance of the global and the international emerging markets diversification over all other strategies. Finally, an assessment between the return and the cost of the portfolios revision strategy is necessary.

The innovation of this paper is to introduce a new concept of the dynamic portfolio management by considering the transaction costs. This paper investigates the performance of a revision procedure for domestic and international portfolios and provides an empirical selection strategy for optimal diversification. The originality of the idea consists on the application of a new statistical inferences methodology to define portfolios needing revision and the use of the TEVM algorithm to define the tracking error dynamic efficient frontiers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine use of the Black‐Scholes (BS) risky asset model to determine choice of optimal investment term in a reinvestment chain model.

An extension of Tobin's separation theorem is used to establish a mean‐variance efficient strategy for lump sum conversion to an income stream over any fixed term; two criteria involving the BS model are then applied to determine optimal investment term in a perpetual chain of reinvestment. The first criterion selects the term to maximize the value of a call option on excess of a market portfolio accumulation over the indexed value of the original lump sum. The second criterion selects term to maximize the expected present value of this excess without the no‐arbitrage assumption.

It is found that both criteria lead to useful but different income stream funding strategies. Annual returns data for the All Ordinaries Accumulation Index for years 1900‐2009 are used for an empirical assessment of the relative usefulness of the two criteria. Empirical evidence favours use of the criterion without the no‐arbitrage assumption.

Mean‐variance efficiency of the lump sum conversion strategy has been described elsewhere, but it has not previously been recognized as an extension of the Tobin theorem. Determination of optimal reinvestment term in this context is new and crucial to practical application of the model. One application of universal significance is for retirees emerging from defined contribution pension schemes with lump sums to provide for retirement in the face of longevity risk.

This essay provides a non‐technical account of the development of thinking about the ways in which financial markets work. The account is organized by distinguishing between the “financial approach” and the “monetary approach” to the study of financial markets. The financial approach emphasizes the importance of arbitrage in determining financial asset prices. The monetary approach utilizes the more traditional tools of supply and demand, and places greater emphasis on the role of market imperfections. The essay evaluates the contribution of each approach to improving our understanding of financial markets. It concludes that the central problem in financial market research remains that of providing a satisfactory explanation of the determination of asset prices. In the emerging regime of liberalized, competitive financial markets both the financial approach and the monetary approach have a distinctive contribution to make in understanding how these markets work. This paper is based on research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under grant No. B0023‐2151.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate two different asset selection methodologies and further examine these by forming optimal portfolios.

This paper deals with the problem of portfolio formation, broadly in two steps: asset selection and asset allocation by using the two different approaches for the first step and then well‐known mean variance portfolio optimization. In addition, the resulting portfolios are compared using Sharpe ratio.

The empirical observations prove the applicability of the methodology adopted in the research design, ordered weighted averaging (OWA)‐heuristic algorithm gives us a better portfolio from the sample observations. Also the asset selection procedures adopted in the research proves to be of help when an investor has to narrow down the number of assets to invest in.

The analysis provides two different methodologies for portfolio formation – though the asset allocation is based on the mean variance portfolio optimization, the asset selection methods adopted provide a systematic approach to select the efficient securities.

This paper shows that OWA can be used to decide the order of inputs for the heuristic algorithm. Also an attempt is made to use data envelopment analysis to find a solution to the problem of portfolio formation.