This paper measures credit risk in prime money market funds (MMFs), studies how such credit risk evolved in 2011-2012, and tests the efficacy of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) January 2010 reforms. To accomplish this, we estimate the credit default swap premium (CDS) needed to...

In this paper we provide a unifying framework for a set of seemingly disparate models for bubbles, shocks and elementary technical trading strategies in financial markets. Markets operate by balancing intrinsic levels of risk and return. This seemingly simple observation is commonly over-looked...

The study investigates factors that incite fraud in the banking sector in Nigeria, using times series data for fraud obtained from CBN data from 1998 to 2010. It was found that high bank deposit were primarily responsible for a high rise fraudulent occurrences in the Nigerian banking sector...

This paper considers the problem of parameter estimation in a general class of semiparametric models when observations are subject to missingness at random. The semiparametric models allow for estimating functions that are non-smooth with respect to the parameter. We propose a nonparametric...

The stochastic frontier model was first proposed in the context of production function estimation to account for the effect of technical inefficiency. The inefficiency causes actual output to fall below the potential level (that is, the production frontier) and also raises production cost above...

A fund's performance is usually compared to the performance of an index or other funds. If a fund trails the benchmark, the fund manager is often replaced. We argue that this may lead to excessive risk-taking if fund managers differ in ability and have the opportunity to take excessive risk. To...

The hedge funds industry was partly blamed for the global financial crisis that started in 2007, especially in Europe. If one analyses the performance of hedge funds during this period, it becomes clear that the hedge fund industry did not necessarily fare well. Some funds gained, but many...

This study analyzes the loss potential arising from investments into CDS for a sample of large U.S. and German mutual funds. Further, it investigates whether the comments funds make on CDS use in periodic fund reports are consistent with the disclosed CDS holdings. For several funds in the U.S.,...