We propose a nonparametric method to test which characteristics provide independent information for the cross section of expected returns. We use the adaptive group LASSO to select characteristics and to estimate how they affect expected returns nonparametrically. Our method can handle a large...

We explore the term structures of claims to a variety of cash flows: U.S. government bonds (claims to dollars), foreign government bonds (claims to foreign currency), inflation-adjusted bonds (claims to the price index), and equity (claims to future equity indexes or dividends). Average term...

Die vorliegende Dissertation besteht aus vier Teilen, die sich mit den Themen Alternative Investments, Katastrophenrisiko und Asset Pricing im Versicherungskontext auseinandersetzen. Mithilfe verschiedener Finanzinstrumente (Aktien, Fonds und Optionen) wird die Bilanz eines...

Die enorme Verschuldung der US-amerikanischen Haushalte in den ersten Jahren des Millenniums wird zumeist als eine Ursache für die Finanzkrise nach 2007 angesehen. Unterstützt durch die Politik, die möglichst vielen Haushalten zu einer Immobilie verhelfen sollte, erlebten die USA einen...

Ongoing demographic change will lead to a relative scarcity of raw labor to the effect that output growth will be decreasing in the next decades, a secular stagnation. As physical capital will be relatively abundant, this decrease of output will be accompanied by reductions of asset returns. We...

This thesis consists of three essays on the interaction of investor clienteles and mutual fund behavior. The first essay (Cici, Kempf, and Sorhage 2015, Do Financial Advisors Provide Tangible Benefits for Investors? Evidence from Tax-Motivated Mutual Fund Flowsʺ) adds to the literature on fund...

Im Nachgang der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise beobachten wir derzeit sehr niedrige Renditen im "sicheren" Anlagebereich auf dem Geldmarkt und für Staatsanleihen. Gleichzeitig sind Aktienkurse massiv gestiegen und zeichnen sich seit Beginn 2015 durch eine Seitwärtsbewegung aus. Die Ursachen für...

The energy sector is one of the most important in the world, so that time series fluctuations in leading energy sources have been analysed widely. As the leading energy commodities are traded on international stock exchanges, the analysis of the fluctuations in stock and financial derivatives...

The current macro-economic and financial conditions remain extremely challenging for the European insurance sector. Under the ongoing low yield environment insurers are changing their business models and looking for new investment and business opportunities to improve their profitability and the...

The term structure of equity returns is downward-sloping: stocks with high cash flow duration earn 1.10% per month lower returns than short-duration stocks in the cross section. I create a measure of cash flow duration at the firm level using balance sheet data to show this novel fact. Factor...