Using the herding measures of Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1992) (LSV) and Frey, Herbst and Walter (2007) (FHW), we assess herding by French equity mutual funds between 1999 and 2005. We show that LSV herding amounts to 6.5% while FHW herding is about 2.5 times stronger. We observe that...

I estimate a mean-variance efficient (MVE) portfolio assuming that the MVE frontier is spanned by optimal portfolios that fund managers offer to heterogeneous investors. Consistent with predictions of mutual fund separation, the estimated MVE portfolio can price the cross section of portfolios...

In 1997, France Telecom, the state-owned French telephone company, went through a partial privatization. We adapt a standard neoclassical model to predict how employees might respond to the firm's offer to sell them various classes of shares. Using a database that tracks over 200,000 eligible...

We compute optimally diversified international asset portfolios for banks located in France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S., using the mean-variance portfolio model with currency hedging. We compare these benchmark portfolios to the actual cross-border asset positions of banks from...

We build a parsimonious international asset pricing model in which deviations of government bond yields from a fitted yield curve of a country measure the tightness of investors' capital constraints. We compute these measures at daily frequency for six major markets and use them to test the...