Much academic and investor analysis and commentary sees the four main precious metals as a single market, integrated and to some degree with each metal a substitute for the other. This proposition, which can be explicit or implicit can be challenged on economic grounds and on statistical...

The effect of inflation on the credit spreads of corporate bonds is investigated utilising real instead of nominal interest rates in extensions of the models proposed by Longstaff and Schwartz (1995) and Collin-Dufresne et al. (2001). Inflation is a critical, non-default, component incorporated...

What drives the compensation demanded by investors in risky bonds? Longstaff and Schwartz (1995) predict that one key factor is the time-varying negative correlation between interest rates and the yield spreads on corporate bonds. However, the effects of callability and taxes also need to be...

The correlation between interest rates and corporate bond yield spreads is a well-known feature of structural bond pricing models. Duffee (1998) argues that this correlation is weak once the effects of call options are removed from the data; a conclusion that contradicts the negative correlation...

The correlation between interest rates and corporate bond yield spreads is a well-known feature of structural bond pricing models. Duffee (1998) argues that this correlation is weak once the effects of call options are removed from the data; a conclusion that contradicts the negative correlation...

Recent theoretical models including the closed-form valuation model of Longstaff and Schwartz (1995) predict that credit spreads are driven by both an asset and interest rate factor. In empirical studies the credit spread may be expressed as either the difference between, or ratio of, the risky...

This paper explores issues arising from the recent published inquiries into aspects of British intelligence assessment procedures on WMD threats. Drawing on the Butler and Hutton inquiries, and on interviews with former officials, it concludes that the process by which the Cabinet Office Joint...