This paper examines the effect of European Central Bank communication on the price discovery process in the Euribor futures market using a new tick-by-tick dataset. First, we show that two pieces of news systematically hit financial markets on Governing Council meeting days: the ECB policy rate...

We analyse how German tourists react to unanticipated shocks that alter their risk perception of selected tourism destinations. Using a difference-in-difference strategy which flexibly accounts for macroeconomic conditions and also addresses potential problems of serial correlation, we isolate...

We investigate the salary returns to the ability to play football with both feet. The majority of footballers are predominantly right footed. Using two data sets, a cross-section of footballers in the five main European leagues and a panel of players in the German Bundesliga, we find robust...

Romania has one of the highest mortality rates in Europe for ischemic heart disease and, especially, for cerebrovascular disease. Taking into account the actual prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, an augmentation of the demand for specialized medical services is expected. As this paper...

We analyze the impact of interim ranking on the risk taking and performance behaviour of professional athletes participating in international weightlifting competitions. Weightlifting competitions are multistage tournaments with the unique characteristic that the athletes must announce in...

Tournaments are designed to enhance participants’ effort and productivity. However, ranking near the top may increase psychological pressure and reduce performance. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on performance using data from international diving tournaments. We find that...

Time series of daily data for Greek sovereign risk have been compiled and analysed statistically to shed light on the way that historical events, including political and institutional changes, determined the creditworthiness of the Greek government on the London stock market from the start of...

Markets reacted strongly to the World Trade Center attacks both in Europe and in the United States. The extent of this crisis was difficult to assess at the time, underlining the need for a specific tool to measure the magnitude of financial crises. A first measure was recently proposed and...

We study the effects of sterilised intervention operations executed on behalf of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) using tick-by-tick transactions data between 1986 and 1995. We extend the preliminary results obtained by Fischer and Zurlinden (1991) by matching these data with intra-day indicative...

I document how the organizational form of a mutual fund aects its investment strategies. I show that centralized funds tilt their portfolios to hard information com- panies whereas decentralized funds tilt their portfolios to soft information companies. I also show that the investments of...