Many authors underlined the convergence of financial structures towards a model which combines elements of the Anglo Saxon one, where markets prevail, with characteristics of the continental European systems, where intermediaries are predominant. The goal of this paper is to study financial...

This paper investigates the relationship between wealth, ageing and saving behaviour of private households by using pooled cross sections of German consumption survey data. Different components of wealth are distinguished, as their impact on the savings rate is not homogeneous. On average, the...

This paper discusses how to introduce liquidity into the well known mean-variance framework of portfolio selection using a representative sample of Spanish equity portfolios. Either by estimating mean-variance liquidity constrained frontiers or directly estimating optimal portfolios for...

A lot happened even before the perceived beginning of this crisis in 2007, so although the events are recent, I will review the period from 2001 to date, as part of our inquiry into the lessons to be learned. Much of it is probably familiar, but worth revisiting. This necessarily simplified...

We develop a geographical-based vibrancy index using important location characteristics that measure local economic health. We show that local vibrancy is associated with future firm outcomes, including investment, leverage, profitability, and firm value. More vibrant firms are located in...

We test if issuers of asset- and mortgage-backed securities receive rating favors from agencies with which they maintain strong business relationships. Controlling for issuer fixed effects and a large set of credit risk determinants, we show that agencies publish better ratings for those issuers...

The authors re-examine the return-volatility relationship and its dynamics under a new vector autoregression (VAR) identification framework. By analyzing two model-free impliedvolatility indices – the well-established VIX (in the United States) and the recently published VKOSPI (in Korea) –...

Financial markets witness high levels of activity at certain times but remain calm at others. This makes the flow of physical time discontinuous. Therefore, to use physical time scales for studying financial time series runs the risk of missing important activities. An alternative approach is to...

We develop a model where a public limit order book (PLB) competes with a Sub-Penny Venue, which allows Sub-Penny Trading (SPT). SPT occurs when a trader undercuts orders in the PLB by less than one penny, a practice we call queue-jumping (QJ). QJ is higher for NASDAQ than for NYSE stocks. We...

We show that following a tick size reduction in a decimal public limit order book (PLB) market quality and welfare fall for illiquid but increase for liquid stocks. If a Sub-Penny Venue (SPV) starts competing with a penny-quoting PLB, market quality deteriorates for illiquid, low priced stocks,...