In this paper, we attempt to examine the speculative efficiency hypothesis on CO2 emission allowance prices negotiated on Bluenext, by testing the rela- tionship between futures and spot prices from the Fama (1970) framework. This approach is based on the joint hypothesis of no risk premium and...

This study examines the martingale difference hypothesis (MDH) for the market of carbon emission allowances within the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) during the Phase I and the Phase II, using both daily and weekly data over the period 2005--2009. The weak-form efficient market...

Financial market participants and policy-makers can benefit from a better understanding of how shocks can affect volatility over time. This study assesses the impact of structural changes and outliers on volatility persistence of three crude oil markets - Brent, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and...

We determine the events that cause large shocks in volatility of the DJIA index over the period 1928-2010, using intervention analysis and conditional heteroscedasticity model. We use a moving subsample window to take into account the periods with high or low volatility, allowing thus to...

We examine whether global or local events are important drivers in causing major shifts and excessive volatility in Islamic indexes than in conventional indexes. We apply an iterative cumulative sum of squares (ICSS) algorithm to identify structural breaks in the volatility of several major Dow...

This paper analyzes the sensitivity of the three Fama-French factors in relation to the US economic uncertainty, by using three proxies of uncertainty measures in macroeconomics, financial markets or economic policy from January 1985 to December 2011. We examine the extent, speed and duration of...

Precious metals (gold, silver, and platinum) have become an important part of investment portfolios for individuals as well as for institutions. A key question is whether investors should actively trade these metals to time the market or whether they should take a buy-and-hold strategy. This...

The aim of this paper is to examine the positive and negative impacts of stock exchange mergers on the informational efficiency of the markets. We consider a range of factors in relation to the stock exchange merger, that can potentially affects market efficiency, after a merger. These factors...

This article extends earlier efforts at redating the US industrial cycles for the prewar period (1890-1938) using the methodologies proposed by Bry and Boschan (1971) and Hamilton (1989) and based on the monthly industrial production index constructed by Miron and Romer (1990). The alternative...

After years of low macroeconomic volatility since the early eighties, well documented and referred to as the Great Moderation period in the literature, the 2008-2009 worldwide recession adversely impacted output levels in most of advanced countries. This Great Recession period was characterized...