Demand is growing for a better understanding of how assets are priced in countries outside of the U.S.While financial data are available for many firms world-wide, it is important to have a reliable andreplicable method of constructing high-quality systematic risk factors from these data. This...

We explore the pricing of variance risk by decomposing stocks' total variance into systematicand idiosyncratic return variances. While systematic variance risk exhibits a negative priceof risk, common shocks to the variances of idiosyncratic returns carry a large positive riskpremium. This...

Previous research has shown that frictions might have a significant impact on the value of a contingent claim, as discussed, for example, in Karatzas & Kou (1996)and Collin-Dufresne & Hugonnier (2002). We consider two types of frictions particularly important: frictions related to trading, such...

In this study, we examine whether changes in the investment opportunityset stemming from interest rate and credit risks are priced in the US, theUK and the Swiss equity premia by estimating both two-factor and three-factor versions of Merton’s ICAPM. The systematic pricing of credit riskis...

Macroeconomic asset pricing literature is concerned with many puzzling aspects in the financial market. Most prominent are the equity premium puzzle, the risk–free rate puzzle, and the volatility puzzle. Moreover, the literature has come to different conclusions regarding the movement of the...

We study properties of structured financial products optimizing a utility functional of a customer. The conventional method may have the disadvantage that the a priori restriction to a certain number of assets could make it impossible to find the optimal portfolio. So instead of optimizing the...

What is the fundamental value of a stock? Do stock prices deviate from this fundamental value? If yes, do they go back to their fundamental value? This paper proposes to answer these three questions by using a stock valuation model based on the Consumption-Capital Asset Pricing Model (C-CAPM)...

In June 2003 Swiss banks held over CHF 500 billion in mortgages. This important segment accounts for about 63% of all loan portfolios of Swiss banks. Since default insurance is not common in Switzerland, the corresponding risks are a severe threat for the health of the financial system. We...

We suggest a simple asset market model in which we analyze competitive and strategic behavior simultaneously. If two-fund separation is found to hold across periods for competitive behavior, it also holds for strategic behavior. In this case the relative prices of the assets do not depend on...

We study the strategic asset allocation for an international investor. The recent empirical evidence on the partial predictability of asset returns has renewed theacademic and practical interest in strategic asset allocation. To model time varying returns on stocks, we use a Gaussian...