Non-standard Options Research Articles

The interaction between equity-based compensation and debt in managerial risk choices

This paper examines the risk incentives of traditional and non-traditional call options in the context of a levered firm where managers under-invest due to risk aversion. Our results contrast with those presented in the literature inasmuch as lookback calls do not always induce higher risk taking than regular calls, and managers always prefer a combination of regular calls and shares of stock in their compensation package as opposed to only company shares. We also show that Asian options outperform both plain-vanilla and other nonstandard options in inducing higher risk taking and, thereby, are a superior remedy for alleviating the agency costs of deviating from the optimal volatility level. Finally, we shed new insights that better clarify the incorrect arguments found in the literature regarding the delta of regular and lookback calls.

Development of professional creativity of future teachers (Based on comparative research in Ukraine and Poland)

The article outlines the essence of professional creativity in pedagogical activity. The teacher’s creativity is described as a complex of intellectual and personality characteristics of the individual, contributing to the independent generation of original ideas and their non-traditional solution. On the basis of comparative experimental research, the level of non-verbal creativity of future teachers of the bordering regions of Ukraine and Poland was revealed in the paper. According to the results of the diagnosis of non-verbal creativity (Torrens methods), the authors conclude that a significant proportion of Ukrainian and Polish students are not able to produce a sufficient number of original ideas in a minimal verbalization (for example, most of the future teachers had the average (47.3% in Ukraine, 45.8% in Poland) and low (respectively 18.7% and 25.8%) levels of non-verbal creativity based on the index of originality). It is emphasized on the need to focus the content of higher education on the development of future teachers’ ability to seek out non-standard options in organizing the pedagogical process, creative modeling of lessons and educational activities, the creation and implementation of original pedagogical ideas, authoring techniques, etc.

How to write a paper for Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry

How to write a paper for <i>Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry</i>

Unobserved-Components Models for Seasonal Adjustment Filters

Time series models are presented, for which the seasonal-component estimates delivered by linear least squares signal extraction closely approximate those of the standard option of the widely-used Census X-11 program. Earlier work is extended by consideration of a broader class of models and by examination of asymmetric filters, in addition to the symmetric filter implicit in the adjustment of historical data. Various criteria that guide the specification of unobserved- components models are discussed, and a new preferred model is presented. Some nonstandard options in X-11 are considered in the Appendix.