We argue for incorporating the financial economics of market microstructure into the financial econometrics of asset return volatility estimation. In particular, we use market microstructure theory to derive the cross-correlation function between latent returns and market microstructure noise,...

This paper proposes the Shannon entropy as an appropriate one-dimensional measure of behavioural trading patterns in financial markets. The concept is applied to the illustrative example of algorithmic vs. non-algorithmic trading and empirical data from Deutsche Börse's electronic cash equity...

Regulations in the pre-Sarbanes-Oxley era allowed corporate insiders considerable flexibility in strategically timing their trades and SEC filings, for example, by executing several trades and reporting them jointly after the last trade. We document that even these lax reporting requirements...

Our study examines the existence and the nature of private benefits of control in Germany. We do this by analyzing initial public offerings of founding-family owned firms and tracking their fate up to ten years following the IPO. Our sample includes a uniquely rich data set of 105 IPOs of...

Since World War II, direct stock ownership by households has largely been replaced by indirect stock ownership by financial institutions. We argue that tax policy is the driving force. Using long time-series from eight countries, we show that the fraction of household ownership decreases with...

This paper examines empirically the question whether the presence of foreign banks and a liberal trade regime with regard to financial services can contribute to a stabilization of capital flows to emerging markets. Since foreign banks, so the argument goes, provide better information to foreign...

Ambivalence in the regulatory definition of capital adequacy for credit risk has recently steered the financial services industry to collateral loan obligations (CLOs) as an important balance sheet management tool. CLOs represent a specialised form of Asset-Backed Securitisation (ABS), with...

This paper considers a trading game in which sequentially arriving liquidity traders either opt for a market order or for a limit order. One class of traders is considered to have an extended trading horizon, implying their impatience is linked to their trading orientation. More specifically,...

Central counterparties (CCPs) have increasingly become a cornerstone of financial markets infrastructure. We present a model where trades are time-critical, liquidity is limited and there is limited enforcement of trades. We show a CCP novating trades implements efficient trading behaviour. It...

With a notional amount outstanding of more than USD 500 trillion, the market for OTC derivatives is of vital importance for global financial stability. A growing proportion of these contracts are cleared via central counterparties (CCPs), which means that CCPs are gaining in importance as...