__Abstract__ The financial world does not have the best reputation. One of the problems is the perceived lack of integrity of financial markets, which is fuelled by examples of financial misconduct. I argue that with financial data becoming more widely available and constantly improving,...

In this paper, we analyze the economic value of predicting stock index returns as well as volatility. On the basis of simple linear models, estimated recursively, we produce genuine out-of-sample forecasts for the return on the S&P 500 index and its volatility. Using monthly data from 1954 to...

Financial theory, resource-based theory and access to deal flow are used to explain syndication practices among European venture capital (VC) firms. The desire to share risk and increase portfolio diversification is a more important motive for syndication than the desire to access additional...

The present paper examines firm size effects on the decision of venture capital firms to participate in a venture capital investment syndication network. The authors submit that firm size effects in venture capital syndication are dependent on resource acquisition motives and transaction cost...

We have studied how the banking and finance industry performs investment appraisal, measures subsequent follow-up and designates project success or failure. Furthermore, the authors looked into the extent of use of the new generation value management models. The result shows that firms are not...

This paper presents empirical evidence that security analysts do not efficiently use publicly available macroeconomic information in their earnings forecasts for emerging market stocks. Analysts completely ignore forecasts on political stability, while these provide valuable information for...

It is widely known that the small but looming possibility of default renders the expected return distribution for financial products containing credit risk to be highly skewed and fat tailed. In this paper we apply recent techniques developed for incorporating the additional risk faced by...

__Abstract__ Banks play a crucial role for the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs represent a large fraction of all firms in many economies and contribute significantly to employment and growth. But, SMEs are more informationally opaque, more risky, more financially...

News plays a crucial role in determining prices in financial markets. In an efficient market, current prices fully and correctly reflect all available information, such that only truly new information leads to price adjustment. This lecture shows that using high-frequency data makes it possible...

We show that results in the recent strand of the literature that tries to explain stock returns by weather induced mood shifts of investors might be data-driven inference. More specifically, we consider two recent studies (Kamstra, Kramer and Levi, 2003a and Cao and Wei, 2004) that claim that a...