There has been an on-going debate about choices of the most suitable model amongst avariety of model specifications and parameterizations. The first dissertation essay investigateswhether asymmetric leptokurtic return distributions such as Hansen’s (1994) skewed tdistributioncombined with...

There has been an on-going debate about choices of the most suitable model amongst a variety of model specifications and parameterizations. The first dissertation essay investigates whether asymmetric leptokurtic return distributions such as Hansen's (1994) skewed tdistribution combined with...

This dissertation consists of two essays on predictability of asset prices. "Benchmarkingproblems and long horizon abnormal returns" and, "Low R-square in the cross section ofexpected returns". Long run abnormal returns following Initial Public Offerings (IPOs),Seasoned Equity Offers (SEO) and...

This dissertation consists of two essays on predictability of asset prices. "Benchmarking problems and long horizon abnormal returns" and, "Low R-square in the cross section of expected returns". Long run abnormal returns following Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), Seasoned Equity Offers (SEO)...

Existing literature has focused attention on the impact of Basle I and similar capital requirement regulations on developed countries where such regulations were found to be effective in increasing capital ratios and reducing portfolio credit risk of commercial banks. In the present study, we...

It is already well known that U.S. investors can achieve higher gains by investing directly in emergingmarkets (De Santis, 1997). Given the opportunity to invest directly in the shares of stocks in the developed(DCs) and emerging (EM) markets, it is interesting to know whether the U.S. investors...

In an efficient market, technical analysis cannot earn abnormal returns. Technical strategies are inferior to a buy and hold strategy since they typically churn investor accounts. Nonetheless, technical analysis appears to thrive. The purpose of this paper is to explain why technical analysis...

The "market discipline" of off-balance sheet banking activities (OBSA) has been reexamined by employing contingent claims valuation techniques to derive implied asset variances from bank equity and deposit insurance, and from risk-premia for bank subordinated debt. Specifically implied asset...

The rapid growth of OBSA in recent years has concerned bank regulators that such OBSA are risk-increasing and should be brought under control throughadditional capital requirements. Previous empirical literature tested the riskiness of certain OBSA by employing systematic or total risk as...

The empirical literature, to date, has ignored the impact of Off-balance sheet (OBS) banking activities on the default-risk premia borne by bank subordinated debtholders. This paper examines the "market discipline" of OBS activities by employing a contingent claims pricing model to the...