This paper examines the quality of credit ratings assigned to banks in Europe and the United States by the three largest rating agencies over the past two decades. We interpret credit ratings as relative assessments of creditworthiness, and define a new ordinal metric of rating error based on...

Many college and university 403(b) plans restrict the menu of investment choices to funds offered by TIAA-CREF, the current manager of over half of all 403(b) contributions. Further, in the face of Internal Revenue Code changes that will take effect in 2006 and will make 403(b) plan ERISA...

While most economists agree that the world is facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there is little agreement as to what caused it. Some have argued that the financial instability we are witnessing is due to irrational exuberance of market participants, fraud, greed, too...

This study analyzes the loss potential arising from investments into CDS for a sample of large U.S. and German mutual funds. Further, it investigates whether the comments funds make on CDS use in periodic fund reports are consistent with the disclosed CDS holdings. For several funds in the U.S.,...

This study provides a comprehensive overview of the use of credit default swaps by U.S. corporate bond funds and analyzes in detail whether certain characteristics of managers, in addition to the fundamentals of a fund, determine how their use these credit derivatives. Results suggest that a...

We provide evidence on the valuation of equity positions by hedge fund advisors. Reported valuations deviate from standard valuations based on closing prices from CRSP for roughly seven percent of the positions. These deviations are economically significant for about 25 percent of the hedge fund...

This study provides a comprehensive overview of the use of credit default swaps by U.S. corporate bond funds and analyzes in detail whether certain characteristics of managers, in addition to the fundamentals of a fund, determine how their use these credit derivatives. Results suggest that a...

This study analyzes the loss potential arising from investments into CDS for a sample of large U.S. and German mutual funds. Further, it investigates whether the comments funds make on CDS use in periodic fund reports are consistent with the disclosed CDS holdings. For several funds in the U.S.,...

This paper examines and evaluates the content and design of the annual pension statement sent to members of funded defined contribution (DC) pension schemes in a selection of OECD and non-OECD countries. The aims of the research are to identify the potential shortcomings in statement planning...

This paper examines the quality of credit ratings assigned to banks in Europe and the United States by the three largest rating agencies over the past two decades. We interpret credit ratings as relative assessments of creditworthiness, and define a new ordinal metric of rating error based on...