The eurozone has a single short-term nominal interest rate, but monetary policy conditions measured by either real short-term interest rates or Taylor rule residuals varied substantially across countries in the period from 2003-2010. We use this cross-country variation in the (local) tightness...

The eurozone has a single short-term nominal interest rate, but monetary policy conditions measured by real short-term interest rates varied substantially across countries in the period 2003 - 2010. We use this cross-country variation in the (local) tightness of monetary policy to examine its...

At the end of 2009, countries in the Eurozone began to experience a sudden divergence of bond yields as the market perception of sovereign default risk increased. The theory of complete markets suggests that sovereign debt spreads and credit default swap (CDS) premia should track each other very...

This paper examines the relative performance of small-caps vs. large caps surrounding periods of peaks and troughs of economic activity, and reexamines the relationship between the small firm anomaly and the business cycle. Small-cap firms outperform large caps over the year subsequent to an...

This paper analyzes Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) in Europe. We document various aspects associated with European SPACs by using a unique and hand-collected data sample encompassing all 19 SPACs which have been listed on European stock exchanges since 2005. The paper shows that...

European index funds and exchange-traded funds underperform their benchmarks by 50 to 150 basis points per annum. The explanatory power of dividend withholding taxes as a determinant of this underperformance is at least at par with fund expenses. Dividend taxes also explain performance...

The shift of perspective from a national basis to a Euro area basis, inevitably induced by EMU, has led member countries to a parallel shift from equity home bias to equity Euro bias. We interpret this evidence by means of a standard mean-variance portfolio selection model modified in order to...

This paper examines changes in acquirer and target companies' Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads as a proxy for default risk around official mergers and acquisitions (M&A) announce-ments. Related literature extensively documents wealth effects triggered by M&A from the shareholders' perspective,...

We perform an event study analysis to determine short-term abnormal stock returns following the Brexit referendum. Moreover, we examine whether firm-level internationalization helps explaining abnormal returns. We find that stocks of firms with higher proportions of domestic sales realized more...

The liquidity of exchange traded funds is of utmost importance for regulators, investors and providers. However, the study of liquidity is still in its infancy. In this work, we show some stylised facts of liquidity statistics (daily/intraday spread, trading volume, etc.). We also propose a new...