The dissertation consists of three self-contained essays, with a focus on empirical capital market research. The first essay "Time-Varying Conditional Market Returns: Is Variance or Tail-Risk Priced", empirically investigates the question whether there is a positive relationship between...

In the spirit of Merton (1973), we assert that temporary aggregate market illiquidity is compensated for in the form of higher conditional market returns. In order to test this hypothesis, we use two available liquidity proxies, namely versions of the Amihud illiquidity measure and a measure...

We study the magnitude of tail risk --- particularly lower tail downside risk --- that is present in intraday versus overnight market returns and thereby examine the nature of the respective market risk borne by market participants. Using the Generalized Pareto Distribution for the return...

We address credit cycle dependent sovereign credit risk determinants. In our model, the spread determinants' magnitude is conditional on an unobservable endogenous sovereign credit cycle as represented by the underlying state of a Markov regime switching process. Our explanatory variables are...

We address credit cycle dependent sovereign credit risk determinants. In our model, the spread determinants' magnitude is conditional on an unobservable endogenous sovereign credit cycle as represented by the underlying state of a Markov regime switching process. Our explanatory variables are...