Recent research reveals that hedge fund returns exhibit a range of different,possibly non-linear pay-off patterns. It is difficult to qualify all these patternssimultaneously as being rational in a traditional framework for optimal financial decisionmaking. In this paper we present a simple...

Regulators often set value-at-risk (VaR) constraints to limit the portfolio risk of institutional investors. For some investors, notably pension funds, the VaR constraint is enforced over a horizon which is significantly shorter than the investment horizon of the investor. Our paper aims to...

Contemporary financial stochastic programs typically involve a trade-offbetween return and (downside)-risk. Using stochastic programming we characterize analytically (rather than numerically) the optimal decisions that follow from characteristic single-stage and multi-stage versions of such...

This paper applies the dichotomous theory of choice by Zou (2000a) tothe analysis of investmentstrategies and security markets. Issues concerning individualoptimality, (approximate) arbitrage,capital market equilibrium, and Pareto efficiency are studied undervarious market conditions. Among the...

An intensive and still growing body of research focuses on estimating a portfolio’s Value-at-Risk.Depending on both the degree of non-linearity of the instruments comprised in the portfolio and thewillingness to make restrictive assumptions on the underlying statistical distributions, a...

The paper seeks to explain the huge cross country variation in private pension funding,shaped by historical choice made when universal pension systems were created after theGreat Depression. According to Perotti and von Thadden (2006), large inflationaryshocks due to war damage devastated middle...

We investigate the effects of introducing a central clearing counterparty (CCP) on securities prices by adopting as an experimental construct the 2009 CCP reform in three Nordic markets. We find that, relative to other European economies, these countries experience market-adjusted equity returns...

Bank holding companies (BHCs) invest in risky projects through bank entities or sell projects for a fee, thus engaging in shadow banking. BHCs can increase their fee income by guaranteeing sold projects with a recourse to the bank's balance sheet. When the expected guarantee repayments depend on...

Islamic strictures require investors to share risks with the entrepreneurs they finance. Sukuk (Islamic securities) come mostly in two varieties, musharakah (basically a joint venture agreement) and ijarah (more like an operational lease agreement). Yet defaults did happen, even in the case of...

We examine whether the drastic improvement in liquidity in the US stockmarket after 2003 has impacted the systematic exposures of hedge funds to theUS-stock market. The relation between market exposure and Amihud’s illiquiditymeasure reverses significantly around a breakpoint situated...