Extreme events affect both the real economy and financial markets, and it is valuable to understand their interrelationship. We analyze the likelihood of crises in the macroeconomy and in financial markets. We compare rare disaster data from Barro and Jin (2011), crisis data from Reinhart and...

In this paper, we analyze the determinants and effects of credit default swap (CDS) trading initiation in the sovereign bond market. CDS trading initiation is associated with a 30–150 basis point reduction in sovereign bond yields, with greater yield reductions accruing to higher default risk...

Herein, we examine whether changes in closed-end country fund premiums lead and/or lag management performance. Using a sample of 46 country funds and a time period of 11 years, we find evidence of a significant negative relationship between past performance and current fund premiums, but no...

This paper examines the effect of sovereign credit rating change announcements on the CDS spreads of the event countries, and their spillover effects on other emerging economies' CDS premiums. We find that positive events have a greater impact on CDS markets in the two-day period surrounding the...

The Treynor index, a well-known, widely-used measure of portfolio performance, is the ratio of the mean excess rate of return of the portfolio to the portfolio's beta. We derive an analytical formula that is designed to yield rigorous confidence intervals on the index. Necessary and sufficient...

With over 6500 mutual funds available to investors, industry data show that consumers pay a great deal of attention to the ratings of mutual funds. In spite of this attention, however, much controversy surrounds the various industry approaches to the rating of mutual funds. Many industry rating...