Using an aggregate credit spread index, we find that it has substantial predictive power for corporate bond returns over short and long horizons. The return predictability is economically and statistically significant and robust to various controls. The credit spread index and its components...

Das Krisenmanagement in der aktuellen zweiten Phase der Pandemie muss neben dem Gesundheitsschutz auch die Entwicklungen im wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Bereich in den Blick nehmen. Dafür sollten die Krisenstäbe in Bund und Ländern ein regelmäßig aktualisiertes und kompaktes "Dashboard"...

Transition to adulthood has undoubtedly changed in the last few decades. For youth today, an important marker of adulthood is self-actualization in their professional career, and, consequently, also the achievement of stable financial conditions. Economic conditions of youth are greatly subject...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic and social determinants of voting behavior, and especially of political polarization, for 20 advanced countries using annual data ranging from 1970 to 2016 and covering 291 parliamentary elections. Using a panel estimation approach and rolling...

Islamic State in Iraq no longer controls territory, but although security is better in Iraq than in recent years, with parliamentary elections being held in May 2018, Iraq faces substantial challenges. This report focuses on three areas of special importance, namely the fragmentation of security...

Modern central banks increasingly value monetary policy transparency, and attempt to build credibility by communicating their decisions to the public. This paper studies whether the communication of central banks can be used to explain upcoming changes in their most important monetary policy...

The effect of corporate diversification on firm performance has been extensively documented in the literature. In the general finance literature, Kuppuswamy and Villalonga (2015) studied the diversification effect during the 2007-2009 financial crisis and found that diversification adds value in...

Brazil has had a long period of high inflation. It peaked around 100 percent per year in 1964, decreased until the first oil shock (1973), but accelerated again afterward, reaching levels above 100 percent on average between 1980 and 1994. This last period coincided with severe balance of...

We develop a macroeconomic framework in which firms are large and have market power with respect to both products and labor. Each firm maximizes a share-weighted average of shareholder utilities, which makes the equilibrium independent of price normalization. In a one-sector economy, if returns...