After the collapse in early transition years, saving rates in Eastern European EU-accession countries have recovered strongly. Is private saving in these countries now driven by the same forces as in the EU? A GMM estimator is applied to analyze the determinants of private saving in both country...

We use futures instead of forward rates to study the complete maturity spectrum of the forward premium puzzle from two days to six months. At short maturities the slope coefficient is positive, but these turn negative as the maturity increases to the monthly level. Futures data allow us to...

A strong private equity market is a cornerstone for commercialization and innovation in modern economies. However, substantial differences exist in the relative amounts raised and invested in private equity across European countries. We investigate the macro-determinants of private equity...

This paper investigates whether central banks can attenuate excessive mispricing in stocks as suggested by the proponents of a \leaning against the wind" (LATW) monetary policy. For this, we decompose stock prices into a fundamental component, a risk premium, and a mispricing component. We argue...

We study the determinants of sovereign bond yield spreads across 10 EMU countries between Q1/1999 and Q1/2010. We apply a semiparametric time-varying coefficient model to identify, to what extent an observed change in the yield spread is due to a shift in macroeconomic fundamentals or due to...

Using exchange rates futures instead of forwards completes the maturity spectrum of the correlation between the spot return and the premium. The correlation decreases with increasing maturity, presumably due to a latent risk premium. We hypothesize that the influence of the unobserved risk...

The use of futures exchange contracts instead of forwards completes the maturity spectrum of the correlation between the spot yield and the premium. We find that the forward premium puzzle (FFP) depends significantly on the maturity horizon of the futures contract and the choice of sampling...