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Typically, international capital budgeting is carried out using the adjusted net present value (NPV) approach. In this article, we present an alternate method for valuing international investments; one that is based on the option pricing theory developed by Black and Scholes (1973). We show that when (a) the decision being valued involves an irreversible investment, (b) the investment decision can be postponed, and (c) uncertainty is resolved gradually over time, using the option pricing approach may be more appropriate than the NPV approach. Applying the traditional NPV approach to value investments such as the decision to enter a new market, expand production, suspend operations temporarily or liquidate operations, may lead one to underestimate their value. This is because the naive NPV criteria is a static valuation method that ignores a firm's flexibility to postpone projects, to abandon them, or to shut down operations temporarily.

Facts vs Fantasies about the ECU. Advantages frequently ascribed to the ECU include the following:

Purpose – We discuss the microeconomic pros and cons of bankloan-backed securities and credit default swaps, that is, the passing on of bank loans or their default risk from originator to the general investor. By ‘micro’ we mean that our focus is on comparative advantages for banks versus other holders of the loans or risks, not the macro pros and cons of higher credit volumes.

Methodology/approach – We apply standard ideas from the corporate finance literature on the choice between loans versus public debt, related to information asymmetries and signaling at the time of origination. We also add new arguments related the possibly unhappy end of the loan.

Findings – Quite apart of the by now familiar quality-preservation incentive issue we think that securitization and CDS destroy value because they move loans and risks away from the party best informed about the risk and best placed to deal with default toward worse-placed parties.

Limitations – The analysis takes the volume of loans as given.

Practical/social implications – ABS and CDS should be confined to the highest-quality type of chapter where no information asymmetries exist, like in Europe where the traditional MBS have not caused problems for centuries.

Originality/value of the paper – To the best of our knowledge, the literature on bank loans versus public debt has not been applied to ABS/CDS before, whereas the issue of who is best placed to bear the risks has not even been raised elsewhere.

This paper studies the exchange rate exposure of investments by the United States, Japan and Germany in the London International Stock Exchange (LSE) from 1982 to 1991. Japanese and German investments are fully exposed to their own exchange rates, and the US is “supernominally” exposed to its own exchange rate. No significant changes in exposure are associated with the Plaza and Louvre Accords. The 1987 worldwide stock market crash exhibits a significant decrease in US exposure, and increase in German exposure. US, Japanese and German investments are also fully exposed to their own exchange rates for the periods before and after the 1986 “Big Bang” in London, except that US investments are “supernominally” exposed in the pre‐Big Bang period.

International banking refers to the activities of providing financial services (banking) to clients (both institutional and individual) located in many different countries. This encompasses a wide range of activities, including transactions with foreigners and domestic residents relating to deposits and lending in domestic and foreign currencies, facilitating foreign currency transactions and foreign exchange risk hedging, participating in international loan syndications, and facilitating international trade finance for clients.

In this paper the authors examine evidence on exchange rate predictability through commodity prices for a set of countries categorized as commodity import- and export-dependent developed and emerging countries.

The authors perform in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting analysis. The commodity prices are modeled to predict the exchange rate and to analyze whether this commodity price model can perform better than the random walk model (RWM) or not. These two models are compared and evaluated in terms of exchange rate forecasting abilities based on mean squared forecast error and Theil inequality coefficient.

The authors find that primary commodity prices better predict exchange rates in almost two-thirds of export-dependent developed countries. In contrast, the RWM shows superior performance in the majority of export-dependent emerging, import-dependent emerging and developed countries.

Previous studies examined the exchange rate of commodity export-dependent developed countries mainly. This study examines both developed and emerging countries and finds for which one the changes in prices of export commodities (in case of commodity export-dependent country) or prices of major importing commodities (in case of import-dependent countries) can significantly predict the exchange rate.