UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

• Dima Al-Khatib (with Professor Andy Naranjo) 

  • The Effect of Local Economic Performance on Commercial Real Estate Performance:  How does a local economy’s performance, measured by looking at leading, lagging, and coincident macroeconomic indicators, impact commercial real estate performance in that area? My research examines various metropolitan areas, with an emphasis on Florida and major submarkets in Florida such as Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and West Palm Beach.  My research analyzes economic conditions over different time periods, cycles, and historical events. I study the effect of these conditions on commercial real estate performance in the specified areas by looking at CRE fundamentals (performance, vacancy rate, cap rate, asking values, absorption rates, trends in sub-sectors, etc).

  • Real Estate in the Sunshine State: An Analysis of the Impacts of Local Economic Conditions on the Performance of REITs Investing in Florida

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• Lan Le (with Professors Tao Li and Sehoon Kim)

  • The Economics of Carbon Finance:  In my research, I undertake a large-scale study of how voluntary carbon markets work. Companies and other stakeholders offset their emissions by purchasing carbon credits created by projects targeted at removing or reducing GHG from the atmosphere. The carbon finance market has been growing quickly in recent years. However, no academic study documents which companies buy carbon credits, how much the credits offset their carbon footprints, and how investors react to such offsets. My study will inform businesses in Florida as they increasingly rely on the carbon finance market to reduce their carbon footprints.

  • The Economics of Carbon Finance

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• Kiran Shah (with Professor Baolian Wang)

  • Constructing a multi-factor model for expected sports betting returns:  The objective of my research is to construct an asset pricing type of formula to be used for betting on MLB games. A viable formula would result in profits becoming more likely than losses in the long run. To achieve this, I am attempting to view the creation of this formula as if it were a multi-factor pricing model like those used to analyze traditional securities. I will include several factors, including common baseball analytics, such as xwOBA (Expected weighted on-base average), as well as surrogate variables for concepts used in traditional asset pricing theory. For example, I will incorporate an autoregressive model to represent a sports “momentum effect,” because the concept that winners keep winning and losers keep losing applies in sports. Sports betting is very much an emerging field, and while a number of models already exist, very few attempts have publicly been made attempting to view each game as if it were a stock to be priced. I am hopeful that this perspective will uncover some insights regarding the sports betting market, including prospectively in Florida.  While sports betting as a whole is currently illegal in Florida, many legal experts expect it to become legal by 2023 or 2024.

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• Ben Mores (with Professor Andy Naranjo)

  • Art markets have shown strong and resilient performance through even the toughest of economic environments.  Some suggest art is an inflation hedge or a safe haven in times of market instability, but the art market may not truly be the pretty picture it has been painted to be. At the surface, art indices and auction data provided by intermediaries illustrate art as an asset that is soundly outperforming US equities and one that will continue to be a stable investment for many years to come.  However, with deeper analysis, one can understand that the current indices do not serve as a systematic measurement tool for the broader US art market mainly because of art’s subjective nature. While art can be a great diversification tool in a balanced portfolio the question becomes whether the information given is reliable enough to make prudent investment allocations into artworks. That is, art indices effectively provide a portfolio effect that is not actionable by an individual investor as there are no traded art indices like a market fund or ETF.  On average, this portfolio provides clear diversification and performance benefits, but instead it is the cross-sectional individual art that owners and investors are directly exposed to that have important cross-sectional exposure variations.  Florida has become an important location for private art auction sales, so my findings have important implications for this growing market in Florida.

  • The Art Market Mirage: Examining the Realities of Investing in the Art World