In contrast to the U.S., many executive managers of continental European firms have a PhD. In this paper we analyze if a research-oriented background in the form of a PhD is linked to the corporate decision-making of CFOs in the use of foreign exchange (FX) derivatives in Germany. After...

In this paper I investigate whether the use of foreign exchange (FX) derivatives adds value to German firms, which together make up one of the major export economies in the world. I analyze a unique, hand-collected dataset that includes information on the use of FX derivatives by 391 firms...

This paper analyzes optimal hedge ratios for foreign exchange (FX) rate risk of companies. Our contribution to the literature is twofold: (i) We present a theoretical two-period regret model that allows us to analyze the determinants of the optimal hedge ratio given the outcome of past hedging...

This paper considers the realized returns of individual investors in warrants and leverage certificates. First, we derive a general formula that analytically decomposes the return into several economically meaningful components that are related to investor's trading behavior and the issuers'...

This paper is the first to analyze the joint determinants of premiums and spreads in structured financial products, while also focusing on issuers' hedging costs. We evaluate more than 396,000 single stock discount certificates on an intraday basis in the German secondary market. We find that...

The spread risk premium component of credit default swap (CDS) spreads represents a compensation demanded by protection sellers for future changes in CDS spreads caused by unpredictable fluctuations in the reference entity's risk-neutral default intensity. This paper defines and estimates a...