This study examines whether shocks from macroeconomic variables or asymmetric effects are more suitable for explaining the time-varying volatility in the dry bulk and tanker freight markets or whether both effects should be incorporated simultaneously. Using Baltic Exchange indices during the...

This study compares the performance of different rebalancing strategies under realistic market conditions by reporting statistical significance levels. Our analysis is based on historical data from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany and comprises three different classes of...

It is often argued that Black-Scholes (1973) values overstate the subjective value of stock options granted to risk-averse and under-diversified executives. We construct a quot;representativequot; Swiss executive and extend the certainty-equivalence approach presented by Hall and Murphy (2002)...

We use a dynamic framework and panel methodology to investigate the determinants of a firms' time-varying capital structure. Our sample comprises 706 European firms from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. over the period from 1983 to 2002. If capital structure adjustment is costly, firms may...

This paper investigates the determinants of cash holdings for a comprehensive sample of Swiss non-financial firms between 1995 and 2004. The median Swiss firm holds almost twice as much cash and cash equivalents as the median US or UK firm. Our results indicate that asset tangibility and firm...

It is well known that asset allocation policy is the major determinant of fund performance. We apply the technique introduced by Ibbotson and Kaplan (2000) to German and Swiss mutual fund data. Our results show that more than 80 percent of the variability in returns of a typical fund over time...

This paper adapts Meucci's [2006a, 2006b] copula opinion pooling (COP) framework to examine whether fixed income hedge fund strategies enhance the risk-return spectrum of traditional bond portfolios. In contrast to the Black-Litterman setup, the COP approach does not rely on linear dependencies,...

Over the last decade, various new asset classes have emerged as alternatives to the more traditional investments. Although they appear attractive at a first glance, there exists hardly any historical performance track record, and experience with the return generating variables is limited. For...

Recent empirical research shows evidence of a positive relationship between the quality of firm-specific corporate governance and firm valuation. Instead of looking at one single corporate governance mechanism in isolation, we construct a broad corporate governance index and apply five...