Knowledge that Transforms

George Feiger, Comment: Kraus and Sick Paper, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 14, No. 4, Proceedings of 14th Annual Conference of the Western Finance Association, June 21-23, 1979 (Nov., 1979), pp. 715-716

One of the interesting anomalies of asset trading in secondary markets is that it is not usually possible to observe actual market clearing prices. Rather, we can only observe transactions as bid and ask price? and infer that the market equilibrium price lies between them. Professor Smidt analyzes continuous transactions data for individual NYSE listed securities during 1977. From it he deduces (1) the behavior of transaction prices, (2) the average size of bid-ask spreads, and (3) the movement of market prices. Given that neither the bid-ask spread nor the actual equilibrium price is observable from the available data, this is an ambitious undertaking. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the transactions data contain three distinct types of trading activity: matching trades at the opening or reopening of the auction market, auction trades (the bulk of activity by number of transactions), and block trades (the second largest activity by dollar volume).

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The problem of the portfolio demand for money was first rigorously studied by Tobin [22]. It has been analyzed since then, by Hicks [8] and Arrow [1], among many others. Many interesting results and implications regarding liquidity preference and risk-taking are derived in these studies. However, the effect of purchasing power risk on liquidity preference has been overlooked in these studies.

George G. Kaufman, Comment: Edelstein and Follain Papers, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 14, No. 4, Proceedings of 14th Annual Conference of the Western Finance Association, June 21-23, 1979 (Nov., 1979), pp. 805-806

Mitchell Trauring, A Capital Asset Pricing Model with Investors' Taxes and Three Categories of Investment Income, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 537-545

The need for an empirical measure of the relative value of financial theories becomes more important as we increase their number and sophistication. Although there are several methods of determining value, here we emphasize relative predictive power. According to this single criterion, a theory is insignificant if it fails to increase our present ability to predict future events. We recognize, however, that a theory can be useful if it merely increases our understanding of real events, or if it is based upon realistic assumptions.

Alan Kraus, Gordon A. Sick, Communication of Aggregate Preferences Through Market Prices, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 14, No. 4, Proceedings of 14th Annual Conference of the Western Finance Association, June 21-23, 1979 (Nov., 1979), pp. 695-703

Erwin Saniga, Nicolas Gressis, Jack Hayya, The Effects of Sample Size and Correlation on the Accuracy of the EV Efficiency Criterion, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 615-628