In this paper we investigate the relation between statistical tracking error measures and assetallocation restrictions expressed as admissible weight ranges. Typically, tracking errors arecalculated as annual standard deviations of return differentials between tracking portfolio andbenchmark. In...

Arbitrage pricing cannot be applied to commodity futures because the physicalcommodity does not represent a pure asset: Since consumption and processing of thecommodity can drive down inventories to zero, it is not always possible to construct areplicating portfolio for the futures contract, and...

This paper examines properties of mean-variance inefficient proxieswith respect to producing a linear relation between expected returnsand betas. The numerical results of a Monte Carlo simulation showthat in the CAPM slightly inefficient, positively weighted proxies causean almost perfect linear...

Das Anlageverhalten von Privatinvestoren unterscheidet sich teilweise markant vonden Voraussagen, welche man aufgrund von Modellen der Portfolioselektion anstellenwürde: so sind beispielsweise Portfolios häufig nicht breit diversifiziert, weder bezüglichder Anzahl der Titel noch bezüglich...

We analyze the asset allocation decisions of different investor groups and investigate how their investmentbehavior changes with macroeconomic conditions. Using a new data set that includes themonthly portfolio holdings of private, commercial, and institutional investors deposited with...

Current discussions about public and private pension plans often include a statement that thestock market is less risky in the long run than in the short run. Pension plans with their ratherlong planning horizon are therefore asked to increase their allocation to the stock market.These...

This paper originates in an email sent by the second author wondering whether the first author knewabout Bronzin’s booklet on option pricing, dating back almost a century and containing formulas whichappear rather similar to those developed by Black-Scholes. The scepticism of the first author...