This contribution starts out by noting a conflict of interest between consumers and insurers. Consumers face positive correlation in their assets (health, wealth, wisdom, i.e. skills), causing them to demand a great deal of insurance coverage. Insurers on the other hand eschew positively...

We present a standard model of financial innovation, in which intermediaries engineer securities with cash flows that investors seek, but modify two assumptions. First, investors (and possibly intermediaries) neglect certain unlikely risks. Second, investors demand securities with safe cash...

This paper examines the direct private equity investment strategies across sovereign wealth funds and their relationship to the funds' organizational structures. SWFs seem to engage in a form of trend chasing, since they are more likely to invest at home when domestic equity prices are higher,...

While empirical literature has documented a negative relation between default risk and stock returns, the theory suggests that default risk should be positively priced. We provide an explanation for this "default anomaly", by calculating monthly probabilities of default (PDs) for a large sample...

We study high-frequency exchange rate movements over the sample 1993–2006. We document that the (Swiss) franc, euro, Japanese yen and the pound tend to appreciate against the U.S. dollar when (a) S&P has negative returns; (b) U.S. bond prices increase; and (c) when currency markets become more...

We examine the motives for and consequences of 5,317 failed and completed cross-border acquisitions constituting $619 billion of total activity that were led by government-controlled acquirers over the period from 1990 to 2008. We benchmark this activity at the aggregate country level and also...

We examine 802 investments by 33 Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in publicly traded companies between May 1985 and November 2009, and find that SWFs tend to invest in large, levered, profitable growth firms, usually headquartered in an OECD country. Announcements of SWF investments yield...

Managing capital flows is the key policy challenge for emerging economies like India in the aftermath of the crisis. In contrast to other emerging markets who are levying capital controls, India's macro-monetary framework is distinguished by significant restrictions that help manage inflows....

Using a comprehensive high-frequency foreign exchange dataset, we present evidence of time-of-day effects in foreign exchange returns through a significant tendency for currencies to depreciate during local trading hours. We confirm this pattern across a range of currencies and time zones. We...