Empirical evidence from the UK market is brought to bear on recent theories of closed-endfund discounts. Market pricing of skill, relative to the fees charged for it, accounts for asignificant portion of discount variation, but cannot explain the rarity of index funds orwhy they trade at a...

The CAPM can explain closed-end fund (CEF) discounts as a consequence of the higherbetas on CEF shares than on their underlying portfolios. The difference in betas is muchgreater for international funds and for bond funds than for domestic equity funds. CEFshares carry both more idiosyncratic...

In open-end funds, net inflows are positively correlated with past performance. This study investigates how past net asset value (NAV) returns affect the premium on closed-end funds traded in the United States and the United Kingdom. Past performance is significantly priced in stock funds,...

We hypothesise that, given the typically uneven distribution of ethnic groups within acountry, ethnic diversity leads to greater local polarization and more frequent, butsmaller, conflicts that involve only some ethnic groups. These conflicts can beoverlooked if the number of fatalities is...

Can pegging reduce real as well as nominal, and multilateral as well as bilateralexchange rate volatility? We investigate this issue using monthly data for 139countries from January 1990 to June 2006...

Real effective exchange rate volatility is examined for 90 countries using monthlydata from January 1990 to June 2006. Volatility decreases with openness tointernational trade and per capita GDP, and increases with inflation, particularlyunder a horizontal peg or band, and with terms-of-trade...

A poor country with volatile export prices borrows in international markets. When debtis denominated in foreign currency, there is a temptation to repudiate when export pricesare low...

This paper explores the relationship between the denomination ofpublic debt and the choice of exchange rate regime. Unlike indexeddomestic debt, foreign debt is subject to valuation e¤ects from realexchange rate shocks. In a standard set-up, where a peg functions onlyas a nominal anchor, more...

Fundamentals may determine the range of real exchange rate fluctuation, through signalsof misalignment, even if they are not a major influence on the level within that range.This can explain the puzzle that more open economies experience lower real exchangerate volatility...

This paper considers the currency composition of sovereign debt in the context of risksharingthrough excusable defaults. It is shown that monetary credibility is not asufficient condition for borrowing in domestic currency. With real exchange rate risk,debt denominated in a borrowing country’s...