We analyze how markets adjust to new information when the reliability of news is uncertain and has to be estimated itself. We propose a Bayesian learning model where market participants receive fundamental information along with noisy estimates of news' precision. It is shown that the efficiency...

This paper delineates the simultaneous impact of non-anticipated information on mean and variance of the intraday return process by including appropriate variables accounting for the news flow into both the mean and the variance function. This allows us to differentiate between the consistent...

We introduce a regularization and blocking estimator for well-conditioned high-dimensional daily covariances using high-frequency data. Using the Barndorff-Nielsen, Hansen, Lunde, and Shephard (2008a) kernel estimator, we estimate the covariance matrix block-wise and regularize it. A data-driven...

There is strong evidence that macroeconomic releases influence prices in financial markets. However, why do markets react to some announcements while they ignore others with a similar content? Based on a Bayesian learning model, we show that market impact is mainly determined by information...

Der Finanzplatz Deutschland ist im internationalen Wettbewerb einem starken Druck ausgesetzt. Die Diskussionsteilnehmer erörtern den Status quo des strukturellen Umfelds sowie mögliche Entwicklungstendenzen. So spielt die Bankenlandschaft eine ebenso bestimmende Rolle wie die finanzielle...

Analysts providing more accurate earnings forecasts also issue more profitable recommendations. We demonstrate how investors can profit from this contemporaneous link by differentiating between able and lucky analysts. In line with previous studies, we find that past track records alone are not...

Standard equity valuation approaches (i.e., DDM, RIM, and DCF model) are derived under the assumption of ideal conditions, such as infinite payoffs and clean surplus accounting. Because these conditions are hardly ever met, we extend the standard approaches, based on the fundamental principle of...

We study the effect of the business cycle on optimal capital structure choice and the benefit to leverage. We propose a regime switching model with a state-dependent cash flow process to capture macroeconomic risk in a firm's cash flow. Our model is parsimonious but still realistic and allows...

We analyze the quality of macroeconomic survey forecasts. Recent findings indicate that they are anchoring biased. This irrationality would challenge the results of a wide range of empirical studies, e.g., in asset pricing, volatility clustering or market liquidity, which rely on survey data to...

We estimate the debt capacity of a firm as the critical debt ratio that causes a downgrade in creditworthiness. Unused debt capacities depict the temporal access to external debt funds and measure a firm's financial flexibility. Firms with high unused debt capacities realize a larger fraction of...