Strategic asset allocation purposes and particularly the evaluation of new asset classes require a forward-looking approach. Philipp M. Becker investigates the attractiveness of microfinance investments for different investor categories. To integrate microfinance into an asset allocation...

Is the euro area getting closer with regard to business cycles? The study investigates the linkage between business cycle convergence and financial portfolio choice for a panel of 18 European countries. For this purpose an index is constructed which measures the similarity of investment...

Using a unique data set that contains the complete ownership structure of the German stock market, we study the momentum and contrarian trading of different investor groups. Foreign investors and financial institutions, and especially mutual funds, are momentum traders, whereas private...