Using a rich dataset of high frequency historical information we study the determinants of European sovereign bond returns over calm and crisis periods. We find that the importance of the equity risk factor varies greatly over time and crucially depends on country risk. In low risk countries,...

This article studies the link between the predictability of futures returns and the business cycle. Modelling the relationship between the variation through time in expected futures returns and economic activity should give us some insight as to whether the predictable movements in futures...

Different theoretical and numerical methods for calculating the fair-value of a variance swap give rise to systematic biases that are most pronounced during volatile periods. For instance, differences of 10-20 percentage points would have been observed on fair-value index variance swap rates...

This paper investigates the role of credit and liquidity factors in explaining corporate CDS price changes during normal and crisis periods. We find that liquidity risk is more important than credit risk regardless of market conditions. Moreover, in the period prior to the recent ‘Great...

The trustees of funded defined benefit pension schemes must make two vital and inter-related decisions - setting the asset allocation and the contribution rate. While these decisions are usually taken separately, it is argued that they are intimately related and should be taken jointly. The...

This study considers the stock performance of America’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens following the annual survey by Business Ethics. We examine both possible short-term announcement effects around the time of the survey’s publication, and whether longer-term returns are higher for firms that...

We study the short-run and long-run performance of Chinese privatization initial public offerings (PIPOs), using data for 340 and 409 new issues on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges respectively, from 1 January 1996 through 31 December 1997. The average market-adjusted initial return is...

We study the short-run performance of the Chinese privatization initial public offerings (PIPOs), using data of 668 new issues on the both Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 1 January 1996 through 31 December 2000. We find that the average market-adjusted initial returns on the 1st, 5th,...

This paper examines the ability of several different continuous-time one and two-factor jump-diffusion models to capture the dynamics of the VIX volatility index for the period between 1990 and 2010. For the one-factor models we study affine and non-affine specifications, possibly augmented with...

A comprehensive description of the trading and statistical characteristics of VIX futures and their exchange-traded notes motivates our study of their benefits to equity investors seeking to diversify their exposure. We analyze when diversification into VIX futures is ex-ante optimal for...