Financial crises can have a severe impact on the real side of the economy with countries losing up to 20 percent of GDP. The paper studies rules that prevent financial instability and currency crises. These include institutional arrangements for a solid banking system, prudent regulations and...

In this paper, we propose a state-dependent VaR (SDVaR) to estimate spill over effects among different financial institutions. We permit spill-over effects to change depending on the state of financial markets. We show that spill-over effects only exist during crisis periods; in calm times spill...

This research study provides insights on how activist hedge funds perform valuation analyses of target firms. Relevant data was hand-collected from a sample of activist hedge fund presentations. Based on the hedge funds’ valuation analyses, the undervaluation of the target firms amounts to...

The main purpose of the article was to analyze the effectiveness of the basic investment strategies used by hedge funds in the long term (years 1994-2015) and during the global financial crisis (years 2007-2009). Using information from commercial databases we attempted to verify the hypothesis...

We examine the factors influencing published estimates of hedge fund performance. Using a sample of 1,019 intercept terms from regressions of hedge fund returns on risk factors (the "alphas") collected from 74 studies, we document a strong downward trend in the reported alphas. The trend...

The existing literature on finance, debt and inequality depicts economic elites as a creditor class. According to a popular thesis, over the past four decades, the rich and ultra-rich households in the top 1 percent have experienced a saving glut (excess income), which they have invested in the...

We examine the factors influencing published estimates of hedge fund performance. Using a sample of 1,019 intercept terms from regressions of hedge fund returns on risk factors (the alphas) collected from 74 studies, we document a strong downward trend in the reported alphas. The trend persists...

In this paper we study a higher moment diversification measure, the so-called diversification delta (Vermorken et al. (2012)), in a dynamic portfolio optimization context. Particularly, we set up an investment strategy that dynamically maximizes the diversification delta for a given set of...

Two activists with correlated private positions in a firm's stock, trade sequentially before simultaneously exerting effort that determines the firm's value. We document the existence of a novel linear equilibrium in which an activist's trades have positive sensitivity to her block size, but...

This paper examines the causes and consequences of hedge fund investments in exchange traded funds (ETFs) using U.S. data from 1998 to 2018. The data indicate that transient hedge funds and quasi-indexer hedge funds are substantially more likely to invest in ETFs. Unexpected hedge fund inflows...