It is well established that international portfolios are far substantially under-diversified, contrary to predictions of traditional finance theory. Even after controlling for market segmentation and “investability” of foreign markets, portfolio under-diversification remains a puzzle. I...

Historical VaR, CVaR and ES (Expected Shortfall) to LIQUIDATION Software is a model characterized by its straightforwardness, allowing regulators measure risk using a standard database of primitive factors and portfolio positions only, leaving little error margin in comparing market risk for...

In this paper, I review hedge fund risk using various commonly used measures including market betas, correlations, and porfolio drawdowns. We see a picture emerge that shows hedge funds have historically hedged a fair degree of systematic market risk, especially in the early years, offering...

Changes in collateralization have been implicated in significant default (or near-default) events during the financial crisis, most notably with AIG. We have developed a framework for quantifying this effect based on moving between Merton-type and Black-Cox-type structural default models. Our...

This paper examines the interaction of idiosyncratic risk, liquidity and return across time in determining fund performance, as well as across investment style portfolios of European mutual funds. This study utilizes a unique data set including returns for equity mutual funds registered in six...

We study how culture influences mutual funds around the world. Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), which is related to ambiguity aversion, is negatively associated with flow-performance sensitivity, deviation from the fund benchmark, fund alpha, and the fraction of active management across the 25...

In this paper we propose an integrated approach to assessing risk for alternative investment funds, both at micro and macro (market) level. Building upon the experience and practice in European Supervisory Agencies and different National Competent Authorities on assessing risk for other type of...

Using a sample of 18,225 global buyouts, we find that management buyouts (MBOs) are significantly more likely to occur if economic policy uncertainty (EPU) increases. This finding is consistent with the idea that EPU provides an opportunity for insiders to capitalize on private information and...

We lay out a model of risk capacity for global portfolio investors in which swings in exchange rates can affect their risk-taking capacity in a Value-at-Risk framework. Exchange rate fluctuations induce shifts in portfolio holdings of global investors, even in the absence of currency mismatches...

We use a unique and comprehensive data set on open-end real estate funds in Germany to study a liquidity crisis that hit this industry between 2005 and 2006. Since this industry is comparably unregulated our data set permits us to contrast competing explanations of liquidity crisis. We find that...