Wednesday, June 14th
5:45 PM Registration 6:00 PM Seminar Begins 7:30 PM Reception
Climate science finds that the trend towards higher global temperatures exacerbates the risks of droughts. We investigate whether the prices of food stocks efficiently discount these risks. Using data from thirty-one countries with publicly-traded food companies from 1985 to 2014, we rank these countries at the end of each year based on their long-term trends toward droughts using the Palmer Drought Severity Index. A poor trend ranking for a country forecasts relatively poor profit growth for the food companies in that country. It also forecasts relatively poor food stock returns in that country, even adjusting for a variety of risk benchmarks. This excess return predictability is consistent with food stock prices underreacting to climate change risks.
(Joint work with Frank Weikai Li, Hong Kong University and Jiangmin Xu, Guanghua School of Management)
Biography
About the Series
The IAQF's Thalesians Seminar Series is a joint effort on the part of the IAQF (www.iaqf.org) and the Thalesians (www.thalesians.com). The goal of the series is to provide a forum for the exchange of new ideas and results related to the field of quantitative finance. This goal is accomplished by hosting seminars where leading practitioners and academics present new work, and following the seminars with a reception to facilitate further interaction and discussion.