The Finance Professor Podcast Linus Wilson

Saving the Toughest for Last: 50th Completers’ Final U.S. State High Points
 
21 Pages Posted:

Linus Wilson
University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration

Date Written: December 27, 2023

Abstract
This paper finds that the most difficult U.S. state high point climbs are saved for the end. 50th completers are significantly more likely to save more difficult U.S. state high points for their final high point ascent. There is also some more limited evidence that 50th completers save more distant high points for their final ascent.
 


Keywords: altitude, Appalachian Trail, ascent, climbing, Denali, difficulty index, high point, highpointing, hiking, Mauna Kea, mount, mountain, mountaineering, peak, peak bagging, state high point, through-hike, trekking, Yosemite Decimal System
JEL Classification: R42, Q38, Z2, & Z3
Suggested Citation:
Wilson, Linus, Saving the Toughest for Last: 50th Completers’ Final U.S. State High Points (December 27, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4677346.
 
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Does Difficulty Affect U.S. State High Points Ascents?
Download it at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4516746
 
24 Pages Posted:

Linus Wilson
University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration

Date Written: July 20, 2023

Abstract
We develop a six-factor ranking of U.S. state high points. While this index is significantly associated with fewer ascents, only one of the six factors drives that result. Technical difficulty is the only measure of high point difficulty that significantly discourages summits. Climbers seem indifferent to physical effort required and are significantly attracted to higher elevation U.S. state high points. We also show popular through hikes near the high point are associated with significantly more summits. This indicates that mountain communities could see surges in tourism if a route to the summit was made less technically difficult.
 


Keywords: altitude, Appalachian Trail, ascent, climbing, Denali, difficulty index, high point, highpointing, hiking, mount, mountain, mountaineering, Mt. Whitney, Pacific Crest Trail, peak, peak bagging, state high point, through-hike, trekking, Yosemite Decimal System
JEL Classification: R42, Q38, Z2, Z3
Suggested Citation:
Wilson, Linus, Does Difficulty Affect U.S. State High Points Ascents? (July 20, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4516746
 
 
Dr. Linus Wilson[1]
Professor of Finance
Department of Economics & Finance
B.I. Moody III College of Business
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Moody Hall, Room 253
P.O. Box 43709
Lafayette, LA 70504
(337) 482-6209
linus [dot] wilson {at} louisiana [dot] edu
https://www.linuswilson.com
www.financeprofessor.org

Dr. Linus Wilson reads his latest paper about the bank runs at SVB and Signature Bank and the Federal Reserve's emergency loan program to save the banks from further uninsured deposit runs. 
The Fed Funds Risk-Premium after the Silicon Valley
Bank Run and the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP)
 
28 Pages Posted:

Linus Wilson
University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration

Date Written: April 8, 2023

Abstract
We find the emergency lending program introduced on March 12, 2023, called the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) coincided with a statistically significant increase in the risk-premium on Fed funds loans relative to the shortest-term T-bills. We find that the risk-premium on Fed funds loans less 28-day T-bills increased by between 39 to 56 basis points in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank runs. This led to a stealth loosening of monetary conditions without a Fed funds rate cut in part due to the incentives created by the BTFP to have banks hoard Treasuries and other eligible collateral.
 


Keywords: Bank Term Funding Program, BTFP, emergency lending Fed, Federal Reserve, Fed funds rate, Signature Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, T-bills, Treasuries
JEL Classification: E43, E51, E52, G21, & G28
Suggested Citation:
Wilson, Linus, The Fed Funds Risk-Premium after the Silicon Valley Bank Run and the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) (April 8, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4413362
 

See all of Dr. Linus Wilson's research at www.financeprofessor.org or www.linuswilson.com
 
This is not investment advice.

by
Linus Wilson
Abstract
The loan standards question in the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Survey is shown to be predictive of quarterly stock returns a month or two after its release. This is an apparent violation of semi-strong form stock market efficiency. Out-of-sample, we use this signal and develop a simple risk and alpha model to market time the S&P 500. It outperformed the S&P 500 with a Sharpe (1966) ratio of 1.9 versus 0.34 for passive investment.
 


Keywords: alpha, commercial and industrial loans, investing, loan standards, market efficiency, market timing, stock market, portfolio theory, returns, risk-model, semi-strong form, Senior Loan Officer Survey, Sharpe ratio, survey
JEL Classification: G11, G14, G17, & G21
 
Wilson, Linus, Profitable Timing of the Stock Market with the Senior Loan Officer Survey (January 21, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4332525
 
See all of Dr. Linus Wilson's research at www.financeprofessor.org or www.linuswilson.com
 
This is not investment advice.
 
 

This is the substantially revised version of this paper. 
 
Estimating the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) Losses from COVID-19 Infections in the United States
 
29 Pages Posted: 21 Apr 2020 Last revised: 6 Dec 2021

Linus Wilson
University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration

Date Written: December 3, 2021

Abstract
This paper uses the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) literature to weigh the costs and benefits of non-pharmaceutical interventions of the U.S. COVID-19 stay-at-home orders that affected 92 percent of the U.S. workforce at their peak in April 2020. We calculate the pre-vaccine COVID-19 infection fatality rate to have been 0.85 percent. We find that the stay-at-home orders saved most likely about 71,000 lives and led to a net benefit to the United States of 1.7 percent of GDP after accounting for lives saved and drops in workforce participation. Through October 31, 2021, the VSL of U.S. lives lost to COVID-19 was over $8.4 trillion.
 


Keywords: cost-benefit, CFR, COVID-19, IFR, NPI, SARS-CoV-2, social distancing, stay-at-home orders, VSL
JEL Classification: G22, I1, I18, J31, J65, K32
Suggested Citation:
Wilson, Linus, Estimating the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) Losses from COVID-19 Infections in the United States (December 3, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3580414 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3580414

Dr. Linus Wilson discusses and reads his most recent study about the cryptocurrency mining and computer hardware prices entitled "GPU Prices and Cryptocurrency Returns".  
"Abstract 
We look at the association between the price of a cryptocurrency and the secondary market prices of the hardware used to mine it. We find the prices of the most efficient Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) for Ethereum mining are significantly positively correlated with the daily price returns to that cryptocurrency. Journal of Economic Literature Codes: G12, G23, L11, L22, L63 Keywords: 3080, ASIC, Bitcoin, crypto, cryptocurrency, ETH, Ethereum, GeForce, GPU, mining, Nvidia, RTX 
by
Dr. Linus WilsonAssociate Professor of Finance Department of Economics & Finance B.I. Moody III College of Business University of Louisiana at Lafayette "
 
"1. Introduction We use a unique data set of scalper prices for graphical processing units (GPUs) to study the association between the price of Ethereum (ticker ETH) and the hardware used to mine it. We find the most efficient ETH mining GPUs as measured by secondary market price per productivity unit (called the hashrate) had secondary market price moves that were positively correlated with daily returns to ETH. Most of the prior research into cryptocurrency mining has focussed on Bitcoin and does not measure the impact between the cryptocurrency’s price’s correlation with key mining hardware. Dimitri (2017) and Ma et al. (2019) model Bitcoin mining as an all-pay tournament. Ma et al. (2019) argue that free entry in mining is ultimately wasteful in part because Bitcoin miners consumed more electricity than all of Australia. Easley et al. (2019) are sceptical about the usefulness of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange as its network could only process seven transactions per second versus Visa which can process 50,000 transactions per second. Cong et al. (2021) find that mining pools help cryptocurrency miners eliminate ideosyncratic risk. Kristoufek (2020) finds that price of Bitcoin over the long-term impacted the cost of mining components. Mueller (2020) looks at entry and exit thresholds for both Bitcoin and Ethereum miners. In section 2, the GPU mining market for cryptocurrency is discussed and basic model of GPU pricing with ETH mining is developed. The data sources are discussed in section 3. In section 4, the statistical analysis indicates that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060ti and the RTX 3080 GPUs are significantly more attractively priced for ETH mining, and their prices are positively correlated with daily price moves in Ethereum. "
 
The paper link is at 
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3922181
 
(c) Linus Wilson, 2021, Vermilion Advisory Services, LLC
www.linuswilson.com
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