The existing replication policies at top finance journals are far weaker than the policies at top economics journals. This paper explores both the costs and benefits of having a stronger replication policy in the context of my failed 2010 initiative to develop a unified policy across all top...

We use industry valuation differentials across European countries to study the impact of membership in the European Union as well as the Eurozone on economic and financial integration. In integrated markets, discount rates and expected growth opportunities should be similar within one industry,...

Recent studies show that volatility-managed equity portfolios realize higher Sharpe ratios than portfolios with a constant notional exposure. We show that this result only holds for “risk assets”, such as equity and credit, and link this to the so-called leverage effect for those assets. In...

In the late stages of long bull markets, a popular question arises: What steps can an investor take to mitigate the impact of the inevitable large equity correction? However, hedging equity portfolios is notoriously difficult and expensive. We analyze the performance of different tools that...

We analyse and contrast the performance of discretionary and systematic hedge funds. Systematic funds use strategies that are rules-based, with little or no daily intervention by humans. In our experience, some large allocators shy away from systematic hedge funds altogether. A possible...

Given the cross-sectional and temporal variation in their liquidity, emerging equity markets provide an ideal setting to examine the impact of liquidity on expected returns. Our main liquidity measure is a transformation of the proportion of zero daily firm returns, averaged over the month. We...

We examine how broker characteristics impact the performance of their recommendations in Europe. In contrast to extant research, we focus on a non-U.S. sample that post-dates the important regulatory changes of 2003-2004. Our research has three intriguing findings. First, we show that more...

A mechanical rebalancing strategy, such as a monthly or quarterly reallocation towards fixed portfolio weights, is an active strategy. Winning asset classes are sold and losers are bought. During crises, when markets are often trending, this can lead to substantially larger drawdowns than a...