Monday, April 1, 2013

MoneyScience News

MoneyScience News


Published / Preprint: Policy and Planning for Large Infrastructure Projects: Problems, Causes, Cures. (arXiv:1303.7400v1 [q-fin.GN])

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:38 PM PDT

This paper argues, first, that a major problem in the planning of large infrastructure projects is the high level of misinformation about costs and benefits that decision makers face in deciding whether to build, and the high risks such misinformation generates. Second, it explores the causes of misinformation and risk, mainly in the guise of optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation....

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Published / Preprint: Measuring Inaccuracy in Travel Demand Forecasting: Methodological Considerations Regarding Ramp Up and Sampling. (arXiv:1303.7401v1 [q-fin.GN])

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:38 PM PDT

Project promoters, forecasters, and managers sometimes object to two things in measuring inaccuracy in travel demand forecasting: (1) using the forecast made at the time of making the decision to build as the basis for measuring inaccuracy and (2) using traffic during the first year of operations as the basis for measurement. This paper presents the case against both objections. First, if one is...

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Published / Preprint: Cost Overruns and Demand Shortfalls in Urban Rail and Other Infrastructure. (arXiv:1303.7402v1 [q-fin.GN])

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:38 PM PDT

Risk, including economic risk, is increasingly a concern for public policy and management. The possibility of dealing effectively with risk is hampered, however, by lack of a sound empirical basis for risk assessment and management. The paper demonstrates the general point for cost and demand risks in urban rail projects. The paper presents empirical evidence that allow valid economic risk...

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Published / Preprint: Delusion and Deception in Large Infrastructure Projects: Two Models for Explaining and Preventing Executive Disaster. (arXiv:1303.7403v1 [q-fin.GN])

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:38 PM PDT

The Economist recently reported that infrastructure spending is the largest it is ever been as a share of world GDP. With $22 trillion in projected investments over the next ten years in emerging economies alone, the magazine calls it the "biggest investment boom in history." The efficiency of infrastructure planning and execution is therefore particularly important at present. Unfortunately, the...

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Published / Preprint: Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition. (arXiv:1303.7404v1 [q-fin.GN])

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:38 PM PDT

Back cover text: Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multibillion-dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy...

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Published / Preprint: How Planners Deal with Uncomfortable Knowledge: The Dubious Ethics of the American Planning Association. (arXiv:1303.7405v1 [q-fin.GN])

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:38 PM PDT

With a point of departure in the concept "uncomfortable knowledge," this article presents a case study of how the American Planning Association (APA) deals with such knowledge. APA was found to actively suppress publicity of malpractice concerns and bad planning in order to sustain a boosterish image of planning. In the process, APA appeared to disregard and violate APA's own Code of Ethics. APA...

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Published / Preprint: Agent-based modeling of a price information trading business. (arXiv:1303.7445v1 [cs.AI])

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:38 PM PDT

We describe an agent-based simulation of a fictional (but feasible) information trading business. The Gas Price Information Trader (GPIT) buys information about real-time gas prices in a metropolitan area from drivers and resells the information to drivers who need to refuel their vehicles. read more...

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Blog Post: Falkenblog: Some Lesser-Known Low Volatility Explanations

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 05:14 PM PDT

If you read the academic literature on the low volatility anomaly, you find they are focused on the Ang, Hodrick, Xing and Zhang papers of 2006 and 2009. This is funny for a couple reasons. First, Bob Hodrick was chairman of the Northwestern Finance department when I was there was completely indifferent to my  dissertation on the negative relation between idiosyncratic returns and stock...

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Blog Post: ThePracticalQuant: Data Science tools: Are you "all in" or do you "mix and match"?

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 09:44 AM PDT

[A version of this post appears on the O'Reilly Strata blog.]An integrated data stack boosts productivityAs I noted in my previous post, Python programmers willing to go "all in", have Python tools to cover most of data science. Lest I be accused of oversimplification, a Python programmer still needs to commit to learning a non-trivial set of tools1. I suspect that once they invest the time to...

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Event: Fixed Income Conference - Darla Moore School of Business

Posted: 12 Feb 2013 07:44 AM PST

Location: Charleston, South Carolina; Date: April 19th, 2013;  read more...

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Event: MoneyScience Financial Training - Introduction to QuantLib Development with Luigi Ballabio

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 06:02 AM PST

Location: London, UK; Date: April 24th, 2013; Read our interview with Luigi Ballabio about the origins of QuantLib, the plans for the future and a run-down on what to expect from this course.read more...

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Event: Recent Advances in Algo and HF Trading

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 04:18 AM PST

Location: University College London; Date: April 3rd, 2013; This confenrece is in now in cooperation with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) activity group on Financial Mathematics and Engineering.read more...

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Event: Workshop on Large deviations and asymptotic methods in finance

Posted: 11 Jan 2013 04:12 AM PST

Location: Imperial College, London; Date: April 9th, 2013; Asymptotic methods span a large number of results on the estimation of rare-event probabilities and the computation of the asymptotic behaviour of partial differential equations. Over the last decade the theory has been successfully applied to the area of quantitative finance, ranging from Monte Carlo estimators and importance sampling to...

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Event: IMA Conference on Mathematics in Finance

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 07:40 AM PDT

Location: Edinburgh Conference Centre, Heriot-Watt University; Date: April 8th, 2013; One persistent theme in the history of mathematics is the close relationship between the subject and finance. From the Babylonians, through Fibonacci and then Stevin, Pascal, Fermat, Huygens, Bernoulli and Bachelier the development of mathematics has often been based on solving problems in finance.read...

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