Central banks hold gold reserves that are designed to build confidence in fiat currency. This confidence is undermined if the price of gold falls significantly or rises significantly. Central banks thus have an incentive to manage the price of gold. Such management is evident in fixed gold...

In this paper, we propose novel predictor variables for forecasting stock market returns. We investigate the predictive power of the demand for gold coins and bars as a proxy for the risk premium consistent with the safe haven property of gold. The gold demand variables reflect the behaviour of...

This paper analyzes financial contagion in European sovereign bond markets. It highlights the relationship between market integration and contagion and demonstrates that the disintegration of the Eurozone sovereign debt markets was a necessary condition for contagion. An analysis of extreme...

This paper analyses the causal relationship between gold production costs and gold prices using a hand-collected set of country and company data on gold mining. We find strong econometric evidence for causality running from gold prices to gold production costs. The results are supported...

We review the literature on gold as an investment. We begin with a review of how the gold markets operate, including the under researched leasing market; we proceed to examine research on physical gold demand and supply, gold mine economics and move onto analyses of gold as an investment....

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on indices provide access to a diversified portfolio of assets at a low cost. Whilst ETFs on single commodities have less obvious advantages its number has grown substantially in recent years. This paper analyzes the benefits and risks of single-asset ETFs...

The correlation between equity returns and currency returns affects the risk of international equity portfolios. We analyze the equity index and currency returns of 53 countries and find that correlations are mainly positive. Negative correlations are found for currencies which play a special...