In this paper we adopt a principal components analysis (PCA) to reduce the dimensionality of the term structure and employ autoregressive models (AR) to forecast principal components which, in turn, are used to forecast swap rates. Arguing in favor of structural variation, we propose data...

The paper proposes a data driven adaptive model selection strategy. The selection crite- rion measures economic exante forecasting content by means of trading implied cash flows. Empirical evidence suggests that the proposed strategy is neither exposed to selection bias nor to the risk of...

In more than 130 years, the cooperative banks and rural banks, have become a best practice, widespread in all the Italian regions so as to become, through Federcasse, a federal system included among the 130 European banks, referents ECB. A model that today has about 400 local banks and that,...

This paper applies a four-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach proposed by Fried et al. (1999) to measure the operational environment-adjusted efficiency of sixty mutual funds in Taiwan from 2006 to 2010. We adopt the approach for adjusting negative output as suggested by Lovell and...

In this study we forecast the term structure of FIBOR/EURIBOR swap rates by means of recursive vector autoregressive (VAR) models. In advance, a principal components analysis (PCA) is adopted to reduce the dimensionality of the term structure. To evaluate ex-ante forecasting performance for...

The UK has embarked upon a programme of reform that will result in the Financial Services Authority (FSA) being split into two separate authorities, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A new BoE committee, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC),...

Islamic Finance has been growing at annual double-digit rates for about 40 years although even in conservative Islamic countries the Sharia with its prohibition of interest (ribâ) is not directly applicable law. Islamic Finance is voluntary and encompasses all kinds of financial services that...

The UK is redesigning the institutional architecture of financial services supervision. The Financial Conduct Authority is meant to play a central role in the reformed system by delivering a new policy approach to the supervision of financial services conduct, which places considerable emphasis...

This paper proposes and evaluates several market-based measures for US and eurozone individual bank tail risk and banking system risk. We apply statistical extreme value analysis to the tails of bank equity prices to estimate the likelihood of individual institutions financial distress as well...

This editorial examines global efforts to regulate the shadow banking system, in particular the green paper released by the European Commission in March 2012. It suggests that the financial market landscape in Europe is currently in flux and large swings in market activity — either through...