There is a broad consensus that the quality of the political system and its institutionsare fundamental for a country’s prosperity. The paper focuses on political events inItaly over the past 35 years and asks whether the adoption of the euro in 1999 hashelped insulate Italy’s financial...

This paper investigates the market pricing of subprime mortgage risk on the basis of data forthe ABX.HE family of indices, which have become a key barometer of mortgage marketconditions during the recent financial crisis. After an introduction into ABX index mechanicsand a discussion of...

We investigate the impact of options listings on the variance of the underlyingstock returns in the Swiss equity market using a non-parametric approach.The emergence of multiple share categories in most Swiss firms,combined with the fact that (listed) options are typically not introduced onall...

Stock returns in emerging markets are to some extent predictable onthe basis of proper instrument variables. We show that local informationis more important than global information to capture emergingstock market returns. This is an indication for at least partial segmentationof emerging stock...

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht, ob der Mehrheitsaktionär einer Gesellschaftim Vorfeld eines Zwangsausschlusses von Minderheitsaktionären (sog.Squeeze-Out) versucht, die Kapitalmarkterwartungen negativ zu beeinussen.Ein solches "manipulatives\ Verhalten wird häufig in der juristischen wie...

Standard equity valuation approaches (i.e., DDM, RIM, and DCF) are derivedunder the assumption of ideal conditions, such as infinite payoffs and cleansurplus accounting. Since these conditions are hardly ever met, we provideextensions of the standard approaches based on the fundamental principle...

Sowohl die Diversifikation als auch die Fokussierung von Unternehmensaktivitäten werdenhäufig mit der Maximierung des Unternehmenswertes begründet. Wir untersuchen dieAuswirkungen auf den Aktienkurs für 184 Akquisitionen sowie 139 Desinvestitionendeutscher Konzerne im Zeitraum von 1996-2005....

We propose a new approach to measuring the effect of unobservable private information orbeliefs on volatility. Using high-frequency intraday data, we estimate the volatility effect of awell identified shock on the volatility of the stock returns of large European banks as afunction of the...

In this paper, we propose a model of credit rating agencies using the global gamesframework to incorporate information and coordination problems. We introduce arefined utility function of a credit rating agency that, additional to reputationmaximization, also embeds aspects of competition and...

In this paper we study information revelation on asset markets with endogenousand exogenous information. Our results indicate that superior informationcan only be exploited in the beginning of trading. Information disseminateson the market and informational advantages are counter-balancedover...