In this paper we present an analysis of diversification strategies on portfolios of European corporate bonds. From the perspective of a US-based investor we study whether mean–variance diversification strategies change as a result of the introduction of the European Economic and Monetary Union...

Building on the growing evidence on the importance of large data sets for empirical macroeconomic modeling, we use a large factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) model to analyze how global developments affect the Canadian economy. We focus on several sources of shocks, including commodity prices, foreign...

There is a growing literature on the realized volatility (RV) forecasting of asset returns using high-frequency data. We explore the possibility of forecasting RV with factor analysis; once considering the significant jumps. A real high-frequency financial data application suggests that the...

We incorporate factors extracted from a large panel of macroeconomic time series in the predictions of two signals related to real economic activity: business cycle fluctuations and the medium- to long-run component of output growth. The latter is simply output growth short of fluctuations with...

This paper empirically evaluates the effects of college admissions policies on high school student performance. To this end, I build a model where high school students decide their level of effort and whether to take the college admissions test, taking into consideration how those decisions may...

We compare the factor forecasting performance of nested specifications of the generalized factor model based on various configurations of a large macroeconomic data set. The forecast simulation design involves in-sample model selection, factor estimation, parameter estimation and, finally,...

Profitability, measured by gross profits-to-assets, has roughly the same power as book-to-market predicting the cross section of average returns. Profitable firms generate significantly higher returns than unprofitable firms, despite having significantly higher valuation ratios. Controlling for...

The behavior of commodities is critical for developing and developed countries alike. This paper contributes to the empirical evidence on the co-movement and determinants of commodity prices. Using nonstationary panel methods, we document a statistically significant degree of co-movement due to...