This paper investigates the optimum position to be adopted by a financial group relative to the agency costs of a given firm in which the funds that it trustee manages possess shareholder positions. The fundamental determining factors regarding the results that were obtained were as follows: the...

Previous research has concluded that mutual funds' clients do have asymmetric performance reactions. Such behavior gives the fund manager the opportunity to optimize the fund's own interests. Using a unique database from a financial system wherein commercial interests, investment banking and...

The absence of investor reaction to the poor performance of mutual funds is a widely reported phenomenon. This paper investigates the role of load costs as an explanation for the phenomenon and concludes that back-end load fees are an obstacle to reaction. We found evidence consistent with the...

We analyze the equity portfolio composition of investment funds of 15 European countries. We find that these institutions tend to prefer larger, more liquid, high dividend, low volatility stocks that belong to the main stock market indices. These results are consistent with previous studies that...

In this paper, by using a database of Portuguese and Brazilian firms, where the Latin Corporate Governance Model is traditionally predominant but increasingly out of fashion, we investigate whether the Latin Corporate Governance Model performs worse or better than others (variants of the...

We use a spatial Probit model to study the effect of contagion between banking systems of different countries. Applied to the late 90’s banking crisis in Asia we show that the phenomena of contagion is better seized using a spatial than a traditional Probit model. Unlike the latter, the...

We use a spatial Probit model to study the effect of contagion between banking systems of different countries on the probability of a systemic crisis in one county. Applied to the late 90’s banking crisis in Asia we show that the phenomena of contagion is better seized using a spatial than a...

Structured retail products (SRP) are one of the most visible faces of financial innovation and are becoming increasingly popular amongst retail investors. However, there is strong consensus that retail investors’ preference for structured products is difficult to explain using the standard...

We use a spatial Probit model to study the effect of contagion between banking systems of different countries. Applied to the late 1990s banking crisis in Asia we show that the phenomena of contagion is better seized using a spatial than a traditional Probit model. Unlike the latter, the spatial...

The potential manager-investor conflict of interests in mutual funds is a classic agency problem. Using a database from Portugal, we show that mutual funds tend to overweight the stocks issued by their parent and underweigh the stocks of competitors. This cannot be explained by performance,...