Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Huang, Pinghsun
Author's Email Address	phuangfin@yahoo.com
URN	etd-0619103-155815
Title	Two Essays on Corporate Hedging: The Choice of Instruments and Methods
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department	Finance (Business Administration)
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Jimmy E. Hilliard Committee Chair Harley E. Ryan, Jr. Committee Member M. Dek Terrell Committee Member Shane A. Johnson Committee Member Roger A. Hinson Dean's Representative
Keywords	stacked hedges metallgesellschaft a.g. options futures strip hedges corporate hedging
Date of Defense	2003-06-16
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract This dissertation examines corporate use of derivative instruments and multi-period hedging methods. It studies the use of linear (e.g. futures) and nonlinear (e.g. options) derivatives in a sample of 382 U.S. non-financial firms (920 firm-year observations) between 1992 and 1996. It also measures the performance of stacked hedge techniques with applications to three investment assets (heating oil, light crude oil, and unleaded gasoline) and to three commercial commodities (British Pound, Deutsche Mark, and Swiss Franc). In a stacked hedge, corporations hedge the long-term exposures by repeatedly rolling nearby futures contracts until settlement. Analyzing the 382 firms, I find that both value maximization and managerial incentives explain the use of linear and nonlinear derivatives by corporations. In particular, the use of nonlinear instruments is positively related to the firm's investment opportunities, size, free cash flow, and prospect of financial distress and managerial option grants. Firms are more likely to use derivative contracts with linear payoffs when their CEOs receive more compensation from bonus compensation or have been in their positions for longer periods of time. I evaluate how well long-term exposures to asset prices can be neutralized using stacked hedge techniques with applications to investment assets and to commodities. My evidence suggests that stacked hedges perform better with investment assets than with commercial commodities. The stacked hedge produces hedge performance of at least 0.98 for investment assets and hedge performance of less than 0.83 for heating oil. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that a stochastic representation of convenience yields results in pronounced deviations from the spot-futures parity resulting in non-trivial hedge errors.
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    Huang_dis.pdf 788.55 Kb 00:03:39 00:01:52 00:01:38 00:00:49 00:00:04

If you have questions or technical problems, please Contact LSU-ETD Support.