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This article seeks to examine the reference yield calculation method used in crop insurance rating and provides recommendations that could potentially improve actuarial performance of the Federal crop insurance program.

Conceptual, numerical, and statistical analysis is utilized to evaluate the reference yield calculation method used in the US Federal crop insurance program.

The results suggest that reference yields, which at the time of this study are calculated using National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) data, do not accurately represent the average actual yields of the insured pool of producers in the Federal crop insurance program. In addition, it is found that not regularly updating these NASS‐based reference yields exacerbates this problem because these reference yields do not appropriately represent the current state of technological progress.

The empirical analysis leads this paper to recommend a reference yield calculation procedure that utilizes county‐average yields from the risk management agency (RMA) participation database and an approach that uses spatially aggregated average yields in cases when data for a particular county are sparse.

No previous study has investigated the reference yield calculation method in the Federal crop insurance program using both RMA and NASS data sets. Moreover, this study contributes to the small literature that examines various aspects of the actual production history (APH) rating platform and suggests refinements to improve actuarial performance.

The question is whether debt market investors see through managers' attempts to hide their pension obligations. The authors establish a robust relation between understated pension liabilities and corporate bond yield spreads after controlling for factors that have been previously identified as having a significant impact on firms' cost of borrowing. The results support the idea that bond market investors are not being misled by the use of high pension liability discount rates by some companies to lower their reported pension obligations. For a small fraction of debt issuers, the reported pension liabilities are larger than the pension liabilities valued at the stipulated interest rate benchmarks. For these issuers with overstated pension liabilities, bond investors adjust their borrowing costs downward.

The authors investigate the relation between corporate bond yield spreads and understated pension liabilities relative to long-term Treasury and high-grade corporate bond yields. They aim to answer two questions. First, what are the sizes of over or understated pension liabilities relative to guideline benchmarks? Second, do debt market investors see through the potential management manipulation of pension discount rates? The authors find that firms with large understated pension liabilities face higher marginal borrowing costs after taking into account issue-specific features, firm characteristics, macroeconomic conditions and other pension information such as funded status and mandatory contributions.

The average understated projected benefit obligations (PBOs) are understated by $394.3 and $335.6, equivalent to 3.5 and 3.0% of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. The average understated accumulated benefit obligations (ABOs) are understated by $359.3 and $305.3 million, equivalent to 3.1 and 2.6%, of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. Relative to AA-grade corporate bond yields, the average difference between firm pension discount rates and benchmark yields becomes much smaller; the percentage of firm pension discount rates higher than benchmark yields is also much smaller. As a result, understated pension liabilities become negligible. The authors establish a robust relation between corporate bond yield spreads and measures of understated pension liabilities after controlling for issue-specific features, firm characteristics, other pension information (funded status and mandatory contributions), macroeconomic conditions, calendar effects and industry effects.

S&P Rating Services recognizes the issue that there is considerably more variability in discount rate assumptions among companies than in workforce demographics or the interest rate environment in which firms operate (Standard and Poor's, 2006). S&P also indicates that it would be desirable to normalize different discount rate assumptions but acknowledges that it is difficult to do so. In practice, S&P Rating Services conducts periodic surveys to see whether firms' assumed discount rates conform to the normal standard. The paper makes an initial attempt to quantify the size of understated pension liabilities and their impact on corporate bond yield spreads. This approach can be extended to study firms' costs of equity capital, the pricing of seasoned equity offerings and the pricing of merger and acquisition transaction deals, among other questions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of crop insurance premiums being determined by small samples of yields that are spatially correlated. If spatial autocorrelation and small sample size are not properly accounted for in premium ratings, the premium rates may inaccurately reflect the risk of a loss.

The paper first examines the spatial autocorrelation among county-level yields of corn and soybeans in the Corn Belt by calculating Moran's I and the effective spatial degrees of freedom. After establishing the existence of spatial autocorrelation, copula models are used to estimate the joint distribution of corn yields and the joint distribution of soybean yields for a group of nine counties in Illinois. Bootstrap samples of the corn and soybean yields are generated to estimate copula models with the purpose of creating sampling distributions.

The estimated bootstrap confidence intervals demonstrate that the copula parameter estimates and the premium rates derived from the parameter estimates can vary greatly. There is also evidence of bias in the parameter estimates.

Although small samples will always be an issue in crop insurance ratings and assumptions must be made for the federal crop insurance program to operate at its current scale, this analysis sheds light on some of the issues caused by using small samples and will hopefully lead to the mitigation of these small sample issues.

The purpose of this paper is to develop methods for inferring if crop insurance premiums imply yield distributions that are valid according to standard laws of probability and broadly consistent with observed empirical evidence. The authors also survey current premium-implied distributions both before and after conditioning on the producer’s choice of coverage level.

Under an assumption of actuarial fairness, the authors derive expressions for upper and lower bounds for premium-implied yield cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) at loss thresholds for each coverage level. When observed premiums imply a CDF that exceeds one or is not non-decreasing, the authors conclude that premiums cannot be actuarially fair. The authors additionally specify very weak conditions for premium-implied yield CDFs to be consistent with two possible reasonable parametric distributions.

The authors evaluate premiums for the year 2018 for 19,104 county-crop-type-practice combinations, both before and after conditioning on producer’s choice of coverage level. The authors find problems in roughly one-third of cases. Problems are exhibited for all crops evaluated, and are strongly associated with areas with lower expected yields and higher yield variability. At least 40m acres are currently insured under premium schedules that cannot possibly be consistent with valid probability distributions.

The authors make two primary contributions. First, the premium-implied yield CDF bounds the authors derive requires fewer assumptions than previous similar work, while simultaneously placing more stringent conditions on premiums to be consistent with actuarial fairness. Second, the authors show that current US crop insurance premiums cannot possibly be actuarially fair for many cases, reflecting tens of millions of insured acres, which implies sub-optimal producer risk mitigation and inequitable expenditures for producers and taxpayers.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of credit spreads in hotel loans securitized into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) between 2010 and 2015.

The sample represents 1,579 US hotel fixed interest rate whole loans with an aggregate mortgage value of $26.6bn at loan origination. The relationship between credit spreads and property, loan and market characteristic is examined via multiple regression analysis. Additionally, the method of 2-stage least squares is used to control for endogeneity bias and identify the effect of the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio on credit spreads.

The multiple regression models explain 80 per cent of the variation in credit spreads and show a significant association of credit spreads with hotel and loan characteristics and market conditions. The findings indicate the debt coverage ratio to be the most important predictor of credit spreads followed by the loan maturity term, implied capitalization rate, LTV and yield curve. The results show the debt yield premium to be a stronger predictor of credit spreads than the debt yield ratio. The spread between the debt yield ratio and mortgage interest rate could be used in future research as an instrumental variable to identify the effect of the LTV on credit spreads.

This study is limited to the CMBS market and the period after the financial crisis. Additional limitations include sample selection bias, exclusion of multi-property loans and variable interest rate loans.

Interest rate increases in an expanding economy would likely increase the cost of borrowing for hotel owners leading to higher debt service payments and lower profitability. If an increase in interest rates is offset by a decline in credit spreads, hotel owners will still benefit from the ensuing stability in borrowing interest rates. The evidence also suggests that CMBS lenders favor select service and extended stay hotels. Owners and operators of these efficient and profitable hotels will likely obtain loans with lower credit spreads given their lower risk of default.

The current study provides evidence on the effects of loan and property characteristics in the pricing of loan risk and serves to inform CMBS market participants about the factors that drive credit spreads in hotel mortgage loans.

The purpose of this paper is to establish whether a terminal value is a substantial amount of the final figure in a hotel’s valuation. Malta’s scenario has been delved into. This due to the fact that owing to Malta’s high population density and its restrictive land area, land values attract a high premium as compared with larger developed countries. Other matters such as earnings’ multipliers derived from a cap rate (initial yield), CAPEX has also been delved into.

The methodologies adopted in hotel valuation practice has been delved into. An extensive literature review is undertaken to analyse the earnings multiplier adopted by various authors over the past 30-year period. The hotel cap rate (initial yield) has been compared with similar yields adopted in the institutional and property markets and then compares to market-based data. A discussion is undertaken on the validity of adopting discounted cash flow, as against the short cut market appraisal approach. Capitalization rates, cap rates have also been referred to as obtained from the academic and practitioners field and compared. Depreciation and the anticipated annual accommodation charges have been analysed. A database of hotel rooms value over the past 20-year period has been referred.

A table outlines the earnings’ multipliers in perpetuity or for the limited expected design life for various cap rates. This data will act as a guide in guiding practitioners to establish an earnings’ multiplier to be applied in their valuation methodology. An example in the Appendix clarifies the manner in which this data table is to be utilized. The finding of this example notes that for this hotel in Malta, as constructed on private land, the terminal value for this development hovers around the 30 per cent of the market value.

This analysis is based on five valuations as undertaken on five hotels in Malta with classification grades varying from III to V. This notes that the terminal value varies within a range of 9-45 per cent of the total value. This analysis has to be undertaken for other countries for a global range of land terminal values percentages to be established.

Establishing the terminal value of a hotel business, will offer greater security for secured lending facilities required. It will further act as an important tool to establish the feasibility of a hotel development.

Updated insight is given to existing hotel valuation methodologies by delving into the workings of the earnings’ multiplier and establishes that in today’s market the terminal value of the hotel basis has to be accounted for. The above findings are based on a link between theory and practice.

It is well recognised that the UK commercial property market has traditionally used nominal market benchmarks such as the all‐risk yield based on the assumption that rents are received annually in arrears. Obviously, the reality of the market is that rents are invariably received quarterly in advance and it has been suggested that valuers should move towards valuation techniques that reflect the actual timing of the cash flow. The Investment Property Forum issued a paper in September 1999 promulgating the use of quarterly in advance valuations. Parry’s Tables provides quarterly in advance formulae that reflect the reality of rental income and indicates that an annual effective yield should be used instead of a nominal yield to compensate for the subsequent compounding resulting from an income received quarterly. However, as will be shown, the effective yield formula provided by Parry’s does not reflect quarterly payments that are received in advance so compromising the accurate transition from annually in arrears to quarterly in advance formulae based valuations. Tables produced by the IPF have rectified this problem in part as they correctly work on the premise that capital values will not change as the profession changes to a quarterly approach. It is the yield which will be expressed differently. The use of an all risk yield technique for valuation is actually a comparative method. The way in which the yield is expressed is not the critical issue, it is the multiplier against the rent which will determine value. This paper provides the formula required to accurately transfer annually in arrears data into quarterly in advance data together with the formulae required for contemporary growth explicit discounted cash flows (DCF).

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the gap between government bonds (index-linked and long-dated) and real estate yields/capitalization rates over time for the UK, Australia and the USA. The global financial crisis was a sharp shock to real estate markets, and while interest rates and government bond yields fell in response around the world, real estate yields (cap rates) have risen.

The absolute yield gap levels and their variation over time in the different countries are compared and linked to the theoretical reasons for the yield gap and, in particular, a changing real estate risk premium. Within this context, it assesses whether there have been structural breaks in long-term relationships during booms and busts based on autoregressive conditionally heteroscedastic (ARCH) models. Finally, the paper provides further insights by constructing statistical models of index-linked and long-dated yield gaps.

The relationships between bond and property yields go through a traumatic time around the period of the global financial crisis. These changes are sufficiently strong to be statistically defined as “structural breaks” in the time series. The sudden switch in the yield gaps may have stimulated a greater appreciation of structural change in the property market.

The research focuses on the most transparent real estate markets in the world, but other countries with less developed markets may respond differently.

The practical implications relate to how to value real estate yields relative to interest rates.

This is the first paper that has compared international yield gaps over time and examined the role of the gap between index-linked government bonds and real estate yields.

This research paper has two objectives. The first is to shed light on the consistency in and quality of the applied valuation models. The second objective is to analyse uniformity on important valuation input variables throughout 1994‐2002.

More than 150 original valuation reports are retrieved and qualitatively checked on model consistency, for example on discounting methods. The impact of the inconsistencies on the end value were calculated by using a dummy discounted cash flow model (DCF). The uniformity of the input variables net yield, discount rate and exit yield are quantitatively determined: is there a decreasing standard deviation through time?

There appears to be little consistency: the Dutch appraisers use a variety of methods within the DCF method. Cash flows are discounted quarterly in advance, yearly in arrear and averaged over the year, only three of the ten most frequent used appraisers use a flexible inflation scenario, etc. These different approaches can have a large impact on the appraisal value. As for the uniformity, the standard deviation for all three variables has not decreased through time.

The conclusions and recommendations of this research have been used by the valuation committee of the ROZ/IPD Netherlands Property Index to improve and extend the valuation guidelines.

Valuation models, which are the foundation of benchmarks, have never been researched on a large scale due to confidential issues. This research appears to be the first to actually analyse valuation models of many different appraisal companies in one country, The Netherlands. The participants of the ROZ/IPD Netherlands Property Index own 85 per cent of the €38 billion institutionally invested value in real estate in The Netherlands. Their policy decisions are partially based on the comparison to the Dutch benchmark. Therefore consistency and uniformity of the valuation models is critical.

The purpose of this study is to provide new empirical evidence on the impact of a variety of financial market forces on the ex post real cost of funds to corporations, namely, the ex post real interest rate yield on AAA-rated long-term corporate bonds in the USA. The study is couched within an open-economy loanable funds model, and it adopts annual data for the period 1973-2013, so that the results are current while being applicable only for the post-Bretton Woods era. The auto-regressive two-stage least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimations reveal that the ex post real interest rate yield on AAA-rated long-term corporate bonds in the USA was an increasing function of the ex post real interest rate yields on six-month Treasury bills, seven-year Treasury notes, high-grade municipal bonds and the Moody’s BAA-rated corporate bonds, while being a decreasing function of the monetary base as a per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and net financial capital inflows as a per cent of GDP. Finally, additional estimates reveal that the higher the budget deficit as a per cent of GDP, the higher the ex post real interest rate on AAA-rated long-term corporate bonds.

After developing an initial open-economy loanable funds model, the empirical dimension of the study involves auto-regressive, two-stage least squares and GMM estimates. The model is then expanded to include the federal budget deficit, and new AR/2SLS and GMM estimates are provided.

The AR/2SLS and GMM (generalized method of moments) estimations reveal that the ex post real interest rate yield on AAA-rated long-term corporate bonds in the USA was an increasing function of the ex post real interest rate yields on six-month Treasury bills, seven-year Treasury notes, high-grade municipal bonds and the Moody’s BAA-rated corporate bonds, while being a decreasing function of the monetary base as a per cent of GDP and net financial capital inflows as a per cent of GDP. Finally, additional estimates reveal that the higher the budget deficit as a per cent of GDP, the higher the ex post real interest rate on AAA-rated long -term corporate bonds.

The author is unaware of a study that adopts this particular set of real interest rates along with net capital inflows and the monetary base as a per cent of GDP and net capital inflows. Also, the data run through 2013. There have been only studies of deficits and real interest rates in the past few years.