The relevance of a fund manager's educational and experience profile to the size of investment portfolio return has been the subject of recurrent research in the last decade. While previous research considered an external reference point of view analysing industry-wide aggregated data, little...

In this paper we show that by assuming a constant variance/covariance matrix over the holding period, the VaR limits can often be exceeded within the relevant horizon period. To minimize this risk, we formulate the problem in terms of portfolio selection and propose an innovative methodology...

The departure in modelling terms from the log-normal distribution for option pricing has been largely driven by empirical observations on skewness. In recent years, the Weibull and generalized beta distributions have been used to fit the risk-neutral density from option prices. In this article,...

In this paper the differences between forward and futures prices for the UK commercial property market are analyzed, using both time series and panel data. A first battery of tests establishes that the observed differences are statistically significant over the study period. Further analysis...

This impressive Handbook presents the quantitative techniques that are commonly employed in empirical finance research together with real-world, state-of-the-art research examples.

The Basel II Accord requires banks to establish rigorous statistical procedures for the estimation and validation of default and ratings transition probabilities. This raises great technical challenges when sufficient default data are not available, as is the case for low default portfolios. We...

The survival probability term structure has become the main concept in modeling credit risk for pricing, risk management, and investment decisions. The Kth-to-default contract is not only a relatively liquid credit risk instrument but also a vehicle that credit rating agencies employ to...