This paper proposes a new copula-based approach to test for asymmetries in the dependence structure of financial time series. Simply splitting observations into subsamples and comparing conditional correlations leads to spurious results due to the well-known conditioning bias. Our suggested...

Using a complete sample of US equity options, we find a positive, highly significant relation between stock returns and lagged implied volatilities. The results are robust after controlling for a number of factors such as firm size, market value, analyst recommendations and different levels of...

This paper investigates the impact of individual bank fundamental variables onstock market returns using data from a panel of 235 European banks from 1991to 2005. The sample period marks a significant transition in the European bankingsector, characterized by higher competition, lower profit...

We investigate the performance of a sample of German mutual equity funds overthe period from 1994 to 2003. Our general finding is that mutual funds, on average,hardly produce excess returns relative to their benchmark that are large enough tocover their expenses. This conclusion is drawn from a...