This paper provides evidence of the impact of hedge funds on asset markets. We construct a simple measure of the aggregate illiquidity of hedge fund portfolios, based on the cross-sectional average first order autocorrelation coefficient of hedge fund returns, and show that it has strong and...

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have become active investors on the financial markets. This working paper meets the increasing thirst for information on the investment activities of Sovereign Wealth Funds, their legal environment and the implications on German stock listed corporations. Thus, this...

Theoretical arguments suggest that as the degree of a country's home bias increases, the global risk sharing between domestic and foreign investors will reduce and thereby increase the country's cost of capital. Consistent with this prediction, we find international differences in the cost of...

This paper presents a variation of the Black-Litterman Model (B&L) for portfolio construction and global asset allocation practices. The methodology proposed retains the Bayesian approach of the original B&L model and, in particular, the derivation of the Posterior Vector of expected market...

The concept of a market portfolio plays an important role in many financial theories and models. Knowledge of each asset's share of the invested capital markets is both useful information and a good starting point for investors considering the appropriate allocation to the asset. In our latest...

We study the impact of global volatility on equity portfolio flows of institutional investors worldwide. We find that their equity allocations decrease in times of high volatility; retail investors are net buyers. The effect is present in developed and emerging markets, is economically stronger...

How does sovereign risk affect investors' behavior? We answer this question using a novel database that combines sovereign default probabilities for 27 developed and emerging markets with monthly data on the portfolios of individual bond mutual funds. We first show that changes in yields do not...

This paper examines how the growth of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has affected the sensitivity of international capital flows to global financial conditions. Using data on individual emerging market funds worldwide, we employ a novel identification strategy that controls for unobservable...

The purpose of this study is to assess the diversification benefits resulting from international asset allocation. In this study, we examine Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in its international context (ICAPM) using the monthly equity returns for 26 countries (18 developed and 8 emerging...