We study the valuation of unit-linked life insurance contracts with surrender guarantees. Instead of solving an optimal stopping problem, we propose a more realistic approach accounting for policyholders’ rationality in exercising their surrender option. The valuation is conducted at the...

This study presents a hedge fund portfolio choice model for an investor facing ambiguity. In the empirical section, we measure ambiguity as the cross-sectional dispersion in Industrial Production growth and in stock market return forecasts, and we construct the systematic ambiguity factors from...

We reconsider the question of whether beta-centric hedge fund activity is predictive of superior performance. We construct a measure of overall beta activity of fund managers, Beta Activity, and find evidence that top beta active managers deliver superior long term out-of-sample performance...

We propose the outperformance probability as a new performance measure, which can be used in order to compare a strategy with a specified benchmark, and develop the basic statistical properties of its maximum-likelihood estimator in a Brownian-motion framework. The given results are used to...

We study managerial turnover for both internally managed mutual funds and those managed externally by subadvisors. We argue that turnover of subadvisors provides sharper tests of any underlying board and sponsor monitoring because these data are heavily weighted toward involuntary turnover. We...

This paper develops a simple technique that controls for ldquo;false discoveries,rdquo; or mutual funds that exhibit significant alphas by luck alone. Our approach precisely separates funds into (1) unskilled, (2) zero-alpha, and (3) skilled funds, even with dependencies in cross-fund estimated...

This paper develops a simple technique that controls for "false discoveries", or mutual funds that exhibit significant alphas by luck alone. Our approach precisely separates funds into (1) unskilled, (2) zero-alpha, and (3) skilled funds, even with dependencies in cross-fund estimated alphas. We...

Recently, there has been explosive growth in two products from the hedge fund industry - multi-strategy (MS) funds and funds of hedge funds (FOFs), both of which offer diversification across different hedge fund strategies. In well-functioning markets, both investment vehicles should offer...

This study examines the phenomenon of performance persistence of equity funds in Hungary in two time perspectives: 1-year and 6-month perspectives. The empirical results confirm the occurrence of performance dependence in consecutive periods. There is also a strong evidence of short-term...