This paper co-authored by M. Nicolas J. Firzli and David Weeks looks at the notions of long-term asset allocation and the ‘quest for yields’ from the perspective of AUS, European and North American pension investors and board members (trustees), which where discussed at two recent global...

We analyze the impact of monetary policy on bilateral cross-border bank flows using the BIS Locational Banking Statistics between 1995 and 2014. We find that monetary policy in the source countries is an important determinant of cross-border bank flows. In addition, we find evidence in favor of...

Distinguishing two components of the preference for geographical proximity – the domestic country bias assessing investors' holdings within the domestic market, and the foreign country bias assessing investors' bilateral holdings within a particular host, I document a number of stylized facts...

The recent financial crisis and the corresponding market crash have had a tremendous impact on investors with significant exposures to equity markets but without appropriate risk control tools. Indeed, within just a few weeks a number of pension funds, university endowments, and mutual funds...

This article presents various techniques for downside risk control of an emerging markets equity index or long only fund. We evaluate different risk adjusted strategies applied to dynamic asset allocation between an emerging markets equity index and cash and at a later stage between an emerging...

Frequent, yet uninformed, fund flows in Chilean pension plans generate substantial trading in currency markets due to the high allocation to international securities. These non-fundamental flows have a significant impact on the Chilean peso, which is estimated to have a relatively low price...

We analyze the effect of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) on bilateral foreign portfolio investment in equity and debt securities. We find that expropriation risk and the level of a BIT’s investor protection are complementary. Applying a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood model to a panel...

This study investigated the directional linkages among net foreign portfolio investment volatility, financial deepening and capital market performance in low-income Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries employing a dynamic panel vector error correction model (P-VECM) on...

In contrast to Robert Mundell‘s Optimum Currency Area theory and his recommendation of forming monetary union, the economic fundamentals of Euro area member countries have not harmonized. The opposite holds: the Euro core countries – most of all Germany, but also the Netherlands and Finland...

I provide an analysis of the home bias in international equity investments using data for the year-end 2006. Distinguishing two components of the local equity preference – the “domestic country bias” indicating whether local investors overinvest the domestic market, and the “foreign...