We investigate the lead-lag relationships between issuer- and investor-paid credit rating agencies, in the aftermath of the regulatory reforms undertaken in the U.S. between 2002 and 2006 —including watch list inclusions and outlooks. First, we find that the lead effect of investor-paid over...

I review the burgeoning literature on applications of Markov regime switching models in empirical finance. In particular, distinct attention is devoted to the ability of Markov Switching models to fit the data, filter unknown regimes and states on the basis of the data, to allow a powerful tool...

This paper uses a multi-factor pricing model with time-varying risk exposures and premia to examine whether the 2003-2006 period has been characterized, as often claimed by a number of commentators and policymakers, by a substantial missprcing of publicly traded real estate assets (REITs). The...

Empirical research suggests that investors’ behavior is not well described by the traditional paradigm of (subjective) expected utility maximization under rational expectations. A literature has arisen that models agents whose choices are consistent with models that are less restrictive than...

it is often suggested that through a judicious choice of predictors that track business cycles and market sentiment, simple Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models could produce optimal strategic portfolio allocations that hedge against the bull and bear dynamics typical of financial markets....

We systematically assess the recursive performance costs–both ex-ante and ex-post–in recursive real time out-of-sample experiments of implementing diversification strategies that allow occupational investment vehicles (OIVs, like pension funds) to allocate wealth across available assets...

We examine whether the dynamics of the implied volatility surface of individual equity options contains exploitable predictability patterns. Predictability in implied volatilities is expected due to the learning behavior of agents in option markets. In particular, we explore the possibility that...

We examine a number of unexplored factors that affect the ex-post adoption rates of newly listed stock options. We show that a variety of measures of information asymmetries for underlying stocks predict option adoption rates. This occurs even when we control for factors that have been found to...

This paper estimates the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on workers' individual wages in a quasi-experimental setting, exploiting a reform that introduced unjust-dismissal costs in Italy for firms below 15 employees and left firing costs unchanged for bigger firms. Accounting...

We exploit a change in compulsory schooling laws in Turkey to estimate the causal effects of education on religiosity and women's socio-economic status. A new law, implemented in 1998 bound individuals born after a specific date to 8 years of schooling while those born earlier could drop out...