This paper uses the market-standard Gaussian copula model to show that fair spreads on CDO tranches are much higher than fair spreads on similarly-rated corporate bonds. It implies that credit ratings are not sufficient for pricing, which is surprising given their central role in structured...

We study risk and return characteristics of CDOs using the market standard models. We find that fair spreads on CDO tranches are much higher than fair spreads on similarly-rated corporate bonds. Our results imply that credit ratings are not sufficient for pricing, which is surprising given their...

We study risk and return properties of capital structure arbitrage strategies aiming to profit from temporal mispricing between equity and credit default swaps (CDSs) of companies. We find that capital structure arbitrage provides an attractive annualized return of 24.35% on invested capital....

We investigate the determinants of bid-ask spreads on corporate credit default swaps (CDSs). We find that proxies for dealer inventory costs such as variability of CDS premia and CDS trading volume explain as much as 80% of variation in CDS bid-ask spreads. We also analyze the influence of...

The popular 'airline' model for a seasonal time series assumes that a variable needs double differencing, i.e. first and seasonal (or annual) differencing. The resultant time series can usually be described by a low order moving average model with estimated roots close to the unit circle. This...

In this paper we analyze an entrepreneur /manager's choice between private and public ownership in a setting in which management needs some "elbow room" or autonomy to optimally manage the firm. In public capital markets, the corporate governance regime in place exposes the firm to exogenous...

The Dutch drinking water sector experienced two drastic changes over the last 10 years. Firstly, in 1997, the sector association started with a voluntary benchmarking aimed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the sector. Secondly, merger activity arose. This paper develops a tailored...

The system of unemployment benefits and subsistence benefits in Slovakia has potentially large disincentive effects with respect to the outflow from unemployment to a job. Especially low educated unemployed and unemployed with young children are often faced with replacement ratios which are...

Labor market theories allowing for search frictions make marked predictions on the effect of the degree of frictions on wages. Often, the effect is predicted to be negative. Despite the popularity of these theories, this has never been tested. We perform tests with matched worker-firm data. The...