In this paper, we present a unified theory of linear smoothing, which looks at the problem from a time-series perspective. We use the term ‘conversion’ to refer to generic operations that create a difference between true returns and reported returns. ‘Smoothing’ occurs when that...

Performance indices for illiquid investments are known to suffer from returns smoothing, and the purpose of this paper is to investigate the presence and nature of such smoothing in the context of venture capital. We find that while the standard techniques may or may not indicate the presence of...

This article examines claims about the diversification benefits of real estate. In particular, does real estate investment in a mixed asset portfolio provide protection when other asset classes are performing badly? Conventional portfolio strategy models utilising covariance statistics may...

Quantitative analysis of property performance has tended to rely on linear models. This paper explores the possible insights of using non-linear, regime based models. It is argued that there may exist different regimes depending on the level of real interest rates. This is tested empirically...