The paper deals with the evaluation of Collateralized Debt Obligations forinvestment purposes. CDOs are classified in the asset backed environment. Itsspecific risks (market, timing, recovery, agency) are discussed. To understand theportfolio aspect, the concept of the diversity score is...

We investigate the problem of modeling defaults of dependent credits.In the framework of the class of structural default models we studythreshold models where for each credit the underling ability-to-payprocess is a transformation of a Wiener processes. We propose a modelfor dependent defaults...

Extreme adverse selection arises when private information has unboundedsupport, and market breakdown occurs when no trade is the only equilibriumoutcome. We study extreme adverse selection via the limit behavior of afinancial market as the support of private information converges to an...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the German corporate governance ratingrecently developed by Drobetz, Schillhofer, and Zimmermann (2004). We find anon- linear relationship between ownership concentration and the quality of firmlevelcorporate governance as measured by the rating. Firms...

The innovations of this paper are fourfold: First we study return differentials more comprehensivelythan in the previous literature by comparing three asset classes : money market instruments, bonds andequities across countries. Second, we document the structure of international portfolio...

This paper investigates the intraday response of T-bond futures pricesto surprises in headline figures of U.S. macroeconomic reports. Analyzing thetime series properties and the information content of the macroeconomic newsflow, the paper seeks an answer to the question, what determines the...