Sovereign bonds are usually priced under the assumption that only the sovereign issuer may be responsible of their repayment. In some cases however, bondholders may legitimately expect to be repaid by more than one agent. For example, when a country breaks-up, successor states may agree to...

Bitcoin is a major virtual currency. Using weekly data over the 2010-2013 period, we analyze a Bitcoin investment from the standpoint of a U.S. investor with a diversified portfolio including both traditional assets (worldwide stocks, bonds, hard currencies) and alternative investments...

The market portfolio efficiency remains controversial. This paper develops a new test of portfolio mean-variance efficiency relying on the realistic assumption that all assets are risky. The test is based on the vertical distance of a portfolio from the efficient frontier. Monte Carlo...

For gold, moving from clandestine to official trading does not significantly change informational efficiency. Both markets are inefficient suggesting that efficiency is linked more to the type of asset than to the legal status of the market.

We develop a method to estimate which side will win a civil war. The key insight we deliver is that, for typical sovereign debt contracts, the probability of debt repayment will equal the probability of victory in a civil war. We test our predictor for standard outcomes in civil wars, including...

This paper investigates the informational efficiency of bond markets when investments are constrained by financial repression. To assess informational efficiency, this paper performs weak-form efficiency tests on the most liquid bond traded in Italy during the war. Surprisingly, the bond market...

Sovereign debts differ from other financial instruments because repayment ultimately depends on the issuers' willingness to pay. In turn, willingness to pay may be influenced by political, diplomatic or economic considerations. Based on an original database of Romanian bonds traded in Paris,...