The LP formula is based upon the substitution of the exogenous risk aversion hypothesis by a credit equilibrium hypothesis. This leads to a trade-off between expected blue-sky return – the expected return excluding default scenarios – and extreme risk estimated from scenarios leading to...

The predictions of the S&P 500 returns made in 2007 have been tested and the underlying models amended. The period between 2003 and 2008 should be described by the dependence of the S&P 500 stock market index on real GDP because the population pyramid was highly inaccurate. The 2008 trough and...

We merge administrative information from a large German discount brokerage firm with regional data to examine if financial advisors improve portfolio performance. Our data track accounts of 32,751 randomly selected individual customers over 66 months and allow direct comparison of performance...

We present an intertemporal consumption model of consumer investment in financial literacy. Consumers benefit from such investment because their stock of financial literacy allows them to increase the returns on their wealth. Since literacy depreciates over time and has a cost in terms of...

In this paper, we examine the evolution of the S&P500 returns volatility around market crashes using a Markov-Switching model. We find that volatility typically switches into the high volatility state well before a crash and remains in the high state for a considerable period of time after the...

We study the relation between cognitive abilities and stockholding using the recent Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which has detailed data on wealth and portfolio composition of individuals aged 50+ in 11 European countries and three indicators of cognitive abilities:...

This paper shows that the stylized fact of average mutual fund underperformance documented in the literature stems from expansion periods when funds have statistically significant negative risk-adjusted performance and not recession periods when risk-adjusted fund performance is positive. These...

The field-based experimental approach was utilized to collect expectations-arbitrage portfolios from more than 100 competent investors at the pick of the financial crisis. The average annual return on 117 portfolios was 5.2% with 55% profitability rate. Prior self confidence emerges as the...

The experimental approach is applied to explore the value of unidentified historical information in stock-return prediction. Return sequences were randomly drawn cross section and time from historical S&P500 data. Subjects were requested to predict returns or select stocks from 12 preceding...

We present a competitive model of takeovers that explains two robust features of the data: target premia and size-dependent bidder returns. Takeovers are driven by complementarity between two factors, non-tradeable "skill" and a tradeable "project". Firms are heterogeneous in both dimensions....