Recent research reveals that hedge fund returns exhibit a range of different, possibly non-linear pay-off patterns. It is difficult to qualify all these patterns simultaneously as being rational in a traditional framework for optimal financial decision making. In this paper we present a simple...

Contemporary financial stochastic programs typically involve a trade-off between return and (downside)-risk. Using stochastic programming we characterize analytically (rather than numerically) the optimal decisions that follow from characteristic single-stage and multi-stage versions of such...

Recent empirical evidence suggests that value and momentum strategies generate significant excess returns in emerging markets. We confirm these results and extend them in several directions. First, we examine a broader range of stock selection strategies, including strategies based on analysts'...

For more than three decades, empirical analysis of stochastic dominance was restricted to settings with mutually exclusive choice alternatives. In recent years, a number of methods for testing efficiency of diversified portfolios have emerged, which can be classified into three main categories:...

Consider the portfolio problem of choosing the mix between stocks and bonds under a downside risk constraint. Typically stock returns exhibit fatter tails than bonds corresponding to their greater downside risk. Downside risk criteria like the safety first criterion therefore often select corner...

The stock market collapse led to political tensions between generations due to the fuzzy definition of the property rights over the pension funds’ wealth. The problem is best resolved by the introduction of generational accounts. Modern consumption and portfolio theory shows that the younger...

This paper argues that historical political preferences on the role of capital markets

While virtually all modern models of exchange rate crises recognise that the decision to abandon an exchange rate peg depends on how harshly policy makers are willing to defend the regime, they virtually never model how the exchange rate is defended. In this paper we incorporate both the...

A number of recent theoretical studies have explored trading in fragmented markets, e.g. Biais et al. (2000), a phenomenon increasingly witnessed in modern markets. The key assumption generating the results is that there is at least one liquidity demander exploiting access to all markets by...

This paper analyses Net Private Capital Flows to LICs incorporating the recent surge in FDI between 2000 and 2006. We show that including country-specific effects in a paneldata setup resolves the Lucas Paradox, at least for LICs. Our results suggest that openness is among the most important...