We introduce a new approach to model the market smile for inflation-linked derivatives by defining the Quadratic Gaussian Year-on-Year inflation model -- the QGY model. We directly define the model in terms of a year-on-year ratio of the inflation index on a discrete tenor structure, which,...

Unlike tranches of synthetic CDOs, that depend only on the defaults of the underlying securities, tranches of cashflow CDOs also depend on the interest cash flows from the coupons of the securities. Whilst fast, accurate, (semi-)analytic methods exist for pricing synthetic CDO tranches (Hull and...

Supported by information systems, the regional or world economy transformed itself in a global economy. Taking fast and optimal decisions is needed for each step an individual or an organization makes in order to support competitiveness in the context of radical evolution of the world economy....

This paper investigates the role of textual information in a U.S. bank merger prediction task. Our intuition behind this approach is that text could reduce bank opacity and allow us to understand better the strategic options of banking firms. We retrieve textual information from bank annual...

We apply control rights theory to explain the structure and determinants of financial covenants in private equity backed leveraged buyouts. We analyze 130 German transactions from 2000 to 2008, covering about 40 percent of the LBO market during this period. We consider Germany to be a superior...

This paper argues that special purpose vehicles, SPVs, are two-edged financial constructs whose bad edge consists in conveying opaque governance, whereas its good one amounts to interesting financial engineering. Firstly, the notion of opaque governance is highlighted, to focus next on SPVs and...

In this paper we deal with the measurement of technical efficiency (or X-efficiency) of institutions whose operations might be significantly affected by macroeconomic, environmental and non-controllable factors. For this purpose we introduce a four-stage DEA methodology based on the approach...

The great majority of Austrian banks operate on a regional or local basis and only a few banks provide their services on a national or even international scale. Obviously, the market environments regional or local banks face are different from that of nationwide operating banks. Casual evidence...

In this paper we investigate the performance of the Austrian banks which have, either actively or passively, participated in a domestic intra-banking merger or acquisition operation since 1995. For this purpose we apply the DEA methodology in combination with a Tobit regression approach to...

This paper is aimed at exploring how X-efficiency or management quality is associated with one of the most vivid forms of international banking, that is, entering new markets by setting up foreign subsidiaries. The analysis focuses on the supposition that management quality ought to be one of...