Applied researchers often want to make inference for the difference of a given performance measure for two investment strategies. In this paper, we consider the class of performance measures that are smooth functions of population means of the underlying returns; this class is very rich and...

A stated objective of the Australian Plain Packaging Act 2011 is to reduce smoking prevalence. We use the Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia) data set over the time period January 2001 to December 2013 to analyze whether this goal has been achieved in the first year since the implementation. In...

Fund-of-funds (FoF) managers face the task of selecting a (relatively) small number ofhedge funds from a large universe of candidate funds. We analyse whether such a selectioncan be successfully achieved by looking at the track records of the available funds alone,using advanced statistical...

A key stated objective of the Australian Plain Packaging Act 2011 is to influence smoking prevalence, in particular of minors. We use the Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia) data set on minors, (that is, Australians aged 14 to 17 years) over the time period January 2001 to December 2013 to...