We study the link between the profitability of momentum strategies and firm size, drawing on an extensive dataset covering 14 stock markets across the globe. International momentum profitability is markedly higher in medium-size than in big stocks. Momentum premia are considerably diminished by...

We present a simple agent-based model to study how the proximate triggering factor of a crash or a rally might relate to its fundamental mechanism, and vice versa. Our agents form opinions and invest, based on three sources of information, (i) public information, i.e. news; (ii) information from...

We investigate the effects of margining, a widely-used mechanism to attach collateral to derivatives contracts, on derivatives' trading volume, default risk, and on the welfare in the banking sector. First, we develop a stylized banking sector equilibrium model to derive a set of testable...

The article presents a Bayesian nonparametric approach to model the Pricing Kernel (PK), defined as the present value of the ratio between the risk neutral density, q, and a modified physical density, p*. The risk neutral density is estimated from option data and the modified physical density is...

We study a number of large international military conflicts since World War II where we establish a news analysis as a proxy for the estimated likelihood that the conflict will result in a war. We find that in cases when there is a pre-war phase, an increase in the war likelihood tends to...

We introduce a novel description of the dynamics of the order book of financial markets as that of an effective colloidal Brownian particle embedded in fluid particles. The analysis of a comprehensive market data enables us to identify all motions of the fluid particles. Correlations between the...

This short review presents a selected history of the mutual fertilization between physics and economics, from Isaac Newton and Adam Smith to the present. The fundamentally different perspectives embraced in theories developed in financial economics compared with physics are dissected with the...

Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we provide the first systematic study of liquidity in the foreign exchange (FX) market. Contrary to common perceptions, we find significant variation in liquidity across exchange rates, substantial costs due to FX illiquidity, and strong commonality in...

It is well known that non-normality plays an important role in asset and risk management. However, handling a large number of assets has long been a challenge due to the curse of dimensionality. We describe a statistical technique, which we call Moment Component Analysis (MCA), that extends...

This paper analyzes the relationships between local and global securitized real estate markets, but also between securitized real estate and common stock markets. First, the volatility transmissions across markets are examined using an asymmetric t-BEKK (Baba-Engle-Kraft-Kroner) specification of...