We study the evolution of global equity market integration using US dollar denominated iShares. Designed to mimic the movements of MSCI indices, these securities provide an easy pool of international diversification products for the investor. As such they allow us to conduct an analysis of the...

This paper examines the linkages between the Russian stock market and those of its largest neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe, and the world stock markets over the 10 year period 1995-2004. What we find is that there was a major change in the nature of these relationships after the so...

This paper presents an analysis of pension funds’ performance in Poland and Hungary as representative Eastern Central European countries. In the theoretical literature it is argued that investment limits and performance regulations may have a negative influence on the performance of funds. In...

This paper examines banking and financial sector return co-movements between the three largest Central and Eastern European countries to have recently joined the European Union, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In order to build up an understanding of the soundness and stability of...

This paper examines the conditional and unconditional mean returns and variance of returns of daily gold and silver contracts over the 1982-2002 period. Despite the importance of these metals as industrial and investment products, they have received scant attention in recent years. In...

We investigate the information shares of the two main centers of gold trading, over a 25 year period, using non overlapping 4 month windows. We find that neither London nor New York are dominant in terms of price information share, that the dominant market switches from time to time and that...

We examine by means of a survey and subsequent statistical analysis the extent of financial risk tolerance in Irish adults. We administer the (J. Grable & Lytton, 1999) 13 item risk tolerance instrument, and find confirmed a number of stylized facts found elsewhere on age, gender and education...

TWe undertake a first benchmark study of economic literacy in Ireland using a panel of 700+ adults to assess the economic knowledge of respondents. Sources of economic information are analysed and ranked in order of usefulness. Accuracy of response in each section is analysed across each...

We assess whether two classes of bubbles occur in the spot price of gold, rational speculative and periodically bursting bubbles, using gold's' lease rates for the first time in the literature as a measures of its fundamental value. This question is of particular significance as these are the...

The aviation industry is characterized by low profit margins and a constant struggle with skyrocketing fuel costs. Financial and operational hedging strategies serve aviation managers as a tool to counteract high and volatile fuel prices. While most research on fuel hedging has concentrated on...