Early warning systems (EWSs) are subject to restrictions that apply to exchangerates in general: fundamentals matter but their influence is small and unstable. Despitethis limitation four major lessons emerge: First, EWSs have robust forecastingpower and thus help policy-makers to prevent...

There are robust gender differences in the domains of risk taking, overconfidence and competitionbehavior. However, as expertise tends to level these differences, we ask whether financialexperts still show gender dissimilarities in their domains of decision making? We analyzesurvey responses of...

This research enters new ground by presenting comparative survey evidence on assetmanagers' views and behavior in the United States, Germany, Japan and Thailand.Relying on Hofstede's four cultural dimensions, we find that cultural differencesare most helpful in understanding country differences...

This paper offers new insights into the Italian mutual fund industry. Surveying Italian professionals, we do notonly reveal typical gender differences but also detect divergence to their German counterparts. While disclosingItalian professionals’ overly positive self-assessment in general, we...

This paper examines whether recently introduced “village funds”, one of the largestmicrofinance programs ever implemented, improve access to finance. Village funds areanalyzed in a cross-sectional approach in relation to competing financial institutions. We find,first, that they reach the...

This paper provides evidence on the hypothesis that many behavioral finance patterns are sodeeply rooted in human behavior that they are difficult to overcome by learning. We test thison a target group which has undoubtedly very strong incentives to learn efficient behavior,i.e. fund managers....

How is it possible that exchange rates move in the long run towards fundamentals, whileprofessionals form consistently irrational exchange rate expectations? We look at this puzzle from adifferent perspective by analyzing investor sentiment in the US-dollar market. First, long-horizonregressions...

Financial liberalisation has often failed in the past due to underestimated problems ofstructural change. We analyse such changes in lending behaviour of Thai commercialbanks during a liberalisation phase by way of unique micro data. Liberalisationhas expected positive effects, such as lowering...

This paper uses the framework of long-term financial system development to describe andassess the reform process in Thailand after 1997. The present financial reforms are well inline with the pattern of financial development found in the academic literature. A detailedanalysis of capital...

This paper makes three contributions to our understanding of the price discovery process in currencymarkets. First, it provides evidence that this process cannot be the familiar one based on adverse selectionand customer spreads, since such spreads are inversely related to a trade’s likely...