We use the European Central Bank's new and detailed database of European equity holdings by households to test two competing theories of international biases in equity portfolios, viz. that they reflect either informational advantages or familiarity bias. The database allows lookthrough handling...

This study investigates whether banks and insurance corporations perform regulatory arbitrage by buying bonds with inflated credit ratings. We argue that credit rating based capital requirements incentivize banks and insurance corporations to hold more bonds with inflated credit ratings. We...

Policymakers fear the potentially destabilizing impact of fickle global investors on emerging markets. Euro area investors are significant participants in emerging bond markets and exhibit volatile flows, but their fickleness does not result in indiscriminate periods of surge and flight....

We derive the optimal currency portfolio of an equity investor with no forecasting ability. This can be estimated based on observable parameters, including equity and currency covariances and the proportion of the investor's wealth held in risky assets. The currency position depends on the...

We test the effect of sentiment on returns using a sample of upstream oil stocks where we have a good proxy for fundamental value. For this sample, the influence of sentiment is highly time-varying, appearing only after the post-2000 increased interest in oil-related assets. Contrary to the...