Firm-level geoeconomic risk can affect even broadly diversified mutual fund portfolios. We study U.S. export controls that restrict sales of cutting-edge technology to selected Chinese firms for national security reasons. The stock prices of affected domestic suppliers drop immediately after the...

Deriving an optimal asset allocation hinges crucially on the quality of inputs used in the optimization. If the vector of expected returns and the covariance matrix are known with certainty, mean-variance optimization produces optimal portfolios. If, however, these parameters are estimated with...

This study examines the effect of the investment portfolio structure on insurers' solvency, as measured by the Solvency Capital Requirement ratio. An empirical sample of 88 EU-based insurance groups was analyzed to provide robust evidence of the portfolio's impact on the Solvency Capital...

This study explores an innovative approach to portfolio optimization, bridging traditional Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) with advanced Machine Learning techniques. We start by recognizing the significance of Markowitz's model in MPT and quickly proceed to focus on the Hierarchical Risk Parity...

Prior research on the demand for life insurance in household portfolio holdings has not made a clear distinction between portfolio shifts resulting from active allocation decisions and those resulting from passive acceptance. Our study examines the relationship between household portfolio...

In this study, we unpack the ESG ratings of four prominent agencies in Europe and find that (i) each single E, S, G pillar explains the overall ESG score differently, (ii) there is a low co-movement between the three E, S, G pillars and (iii) there are specific ESG Key Performance Indicators...

This article combines the traditional definition of portfolio risk with minimum-spanning-tree-based "interconnectedness risk" to improve equal risk contribution portfolio performance. We use betweenness centrality to measure an asset's importance in a market graph (network). After filtering the...

Defined benefit (DB) pension plans are a primary type of pension schemes with the sponsor assuming most of the risks. Longevity-indexed bonds have been used to hedge or transfer risks in pension plans. Our objective is to study an aggregated DB pension plan's optimal risk management problem...

This WBG study examines what makes distressed asset markets work — and how governments can create the right conditions for private sector engagement. It provides policymakers, regulators, and financial institutions with a practical framework to assess market readiness, identify policy and...

Infrastructure development is crucial for the continued economic growth and prosperity of emerging markets and developed economies (EMDEs). The demand for infrastructure, propelled by population growth and ever-increasing rate of urbanization, has resulted in the need to build, and improve...

Standard optimal capital tax theory abstracts from modeling asset prices, making it unsuitable for thinking about capital gains and wealth taxation. We study optimal redistributive taxation in an environment with asset price movements, adopting the modern finance view that asset prices fluctuate...

We put forward a Dynamic Regularized Parametric (DRP) approach for active portfolio policies. We build upon the parametric policy framework of Brandt et al. (2009) that directly links the portfolio weights to a limited set of asset characteristics. This yields a parsimonious specification that...

The literature on derivative pricing in illiquid markets has mostly focused on computing optimal hedging controls, but empirical microstructure studies show that large order flow generates persistent and predictable price effects. Therefore, these controls can themselves induce endogenous market...

This article introduces OPENSIMPLEST, a highly parsimonious stock-flow consistent (SFC) model of an open economy. The model is designed as a pedagogical and analytical benchmark that preserves the core mechanisms of more complex open-economy SFC frameworks while remaining complete, transparent,...

We investigate the impact of structural shocks on the joint distribution of future real GDP growth and inflation in the euro area. We model the conditional mean of these variables, along with selected financial indicators, using a VAR and perform quantile regressions on the VAR residuals to...

The diverse rating scales used by brokerage firms pose significant challenges for aggregating analyst recommendations in financial research. We develop a momentum-based normalization framework that transforms heterogeneous rating changes into standardized sentiment signals using firm-relative,...

This study examines quantitative investment strategies for Brazilian equity funds, integrating traditional financial performance indicators with machine learning techniques to enhance fund selection. The main objective was to construct and validate predictive models for fund selection. The...

We calibrate a lifecycle portfolio-choice model of homeowners facing uninsurable income risk to show that tax deductions for mortgage interest payments and voluntary pension contributions have sizable effects on household portfolios and macroprudential risks. The deductions reduce the after-tax...

In this paper we employ the natural experiment of German Division and Reunification in order to study the effect of institutional reform on the decision to hold risky assets. We present empirical evidence indicating that even 16 years after German Reunification risky portfolios of East and West...

As global climate and sustainable challenges gain more attention, green finance has emerged as a significant focus of worldwide financial reform, with green bonds serving as a key indicator. Retail investors, as an important part of the financial market, have a significant impact on the...

In deregulated electricity markets, Generation Companies (GENCOs) are exposed to substantial financial risk due to volatile and uncertain electricity prices. Traditional generation asset valuation approaches, which rely primarily on expected profit, fail to adequately capture downside risk under...

Despite the economic relevance of climate-transition risk, firm-level carbon exposure often fails to appear as a robustly priced factor when ESG measures and sustainability shocks are conflated. This study examines whether carbon exposure is conditionally priced in European equity returns using...

This study builds on the concept of loss tolerance by introducing investment grip, a behavioral interpretation that captures investors' commitment to long-term objectives under adverse market conditions. While loss tolerance traditionally measures the maximum financial loss an investor can...

We study how sustainability disclosure regulation affects mutual fund flows and portfolio choices, accounting for investor heterogeneity. Guided by a model of ESG investing under uncertainty, we exploit the introduction of the European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) as a...

Managers of actively managed funds do not maintain a constant investment style. Instead, their factor loadings change over time. These changes are especially large following quarters with extreme returns and fund flows and arise from both active portfolio reallocations and passive style drift....