This Article attempts to define hedge funds and to distinguish them from a variety of similar investment funds. After reviewing the hedge fund definition in the U.S. and the EU, this Article argues that the current regulatory framework, which defines hedge funds by reference to what they are not...

Financial markets have experienced unprecedented transformations, signs of which have emerged since the late 1970s. In recent years substantial consolidation occurred. In response to changes in macroeconomic variables, such as GDP, industrial production, inflation and the political business...

This paper studies the predictability of stock returns using monthly data on eight markets over the period 1876-1913. In contrast to much of the existing literature I find broad predictability across stock markets. Market interest rates and seasonal dummies generally have predictive power, and...

This paper uses a broad geographical sample to investigate stock market integration during the classical Gold Standard. It is novel in estimating 'global components' of stock market returns, using methods proposed by Volosovych (2011), Pukthuanthong and Roll (2009) and Ciccarelli and Mojon...

I study the returns to investments in durable assets since the start of the twentieth century. These assets are generally characterized by relatively low capital gains and substantial price fluctuations. The rate of value appreciation has been more pronounced for collectibles, but transaction...

We introduce a new methodology to categorize institutional herding tendency and direction, that enhances the precision with which herders are identified at the institutional level. The herders are the ones that follow the crowd both on the buy and sell trades, whereas anti-herders are the...

Although banks are central to the economic development and growth of emerging markets (Benston, 2004), most studies have not investigated the determinants of stock returns of this sector in these countries. This study, contributes to the literature in finance by investigating and identifying...

We present evidence of significant bias in event studies that investigate the effect of U.S. monetary policy on U.S. stock prices. To overcome this bias, we propose a new identification method based on the "Impossible Trinity" theory which argues that an economy with a fixed exchange rate and...

This article investigates the effects of governmental activity (turnover and color) on stock returns in France which suffered 150 different governments between 1871 and 2008. An appointment ends an uncertainty: when a government is appointed the average monthly stock price return is three times...

This paper investigates how firm debt disproportionately impacted the stock returns of firms who were highly exposed to the economic consequences of social distancing. Specifically, I use a difference-in-difference design to causally identify the impact that higher levels of firm debt had for...