The Portuguese stock market provides a natural experiment to analyze theories of optimal price per share. The particular characteristics of this market suggest that prices per share should be very low. Using a sample of 20 stocks from the main Portuguese Stock Index (PSI20) in Jan/1999-Jun/2010,...

This paper studies how the state of the banking sector influences stock returns of nonfinancial firms. We consider a two-factor pricing model, where the first factor is the traditional market excess return and the second factor is the change in the average distance to default of commercial...

This paper investigates the motivations of Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) to change their ratings, and the consequences of those changes. We propose a new measure of ratings stability that summarizes the information in a ratings transition matrix into a single scalar number. We find that the...

There is an ongoing trend of deregulation and integration of electricity markets in Europe and North America. This change in market structure has naturally affected the interaction between agents and has contributed to an increasing commoditization of electric power. This paper focuses on one...