In January 2005 the EU-wide CO2 emissions trading system (EU-ETS) has formally entered into operation.Within the new trading system, the right to emit a particular amount of CO2 becomes a tradable commodity - called EU Allowances (EUAs) - and affected companies, traders and investors will face...

Many of the concepts in theoretical and empirical finance developed over thepast decades - including the classical portfolio theory, the Black-Scholes-Mertonoption pricing model and the RiskMetrics variance-covariance approach toValue at Risk (VaR) - rest upon the assumption that asset returns...