Forecasting based pricing of Weather Derivatives (WDs) is a new approach in valuation of contingent claims on nontradable underlyings. Standard techniques are based on historical weather data. Forward-looking information such as meteorological forecasts or the implied market price of risk (MPR)...

The paper analyzes the relation between growth and income inequality in the US during the post-war years (1953–2008). We show that the income of the top income groups is more sensitive to growth, defined broadly as current growth and changes in expectations of future growth, compared to the...

To study the effect of the legal system on the cost of external financing, we examine the degree of underpricing of the IPOs by foreign companies listed in the U.S. We find that firms from highly corrupted countries have larger IPO underpricing. The quality of the home countries' public law...

Forecasting based pricing of Weather Derivatives (WDs) is a new approach in valuation of contingent claims on nontradable underlyings. Standard techniques are based on historical weather data. Forward-looking information such as meteorological forecasts or the implied market price of risk (MPR)...

We consider VAR models for variables exhibiting cointegration and comon cyclical features. While the presence of cointegration reduces the rank of the long-run multiplier matrix, other types of common features lead to rank reduction of the short-run dynamics. We distinguish between strong and...

In this paper we analyze transitions in the stock markets of the US, the UK, and Germany. For all this markets we find that while the markets were focused on stocks from the IT and technology sector around the year 2000, this focus has vanished and the markets have mostly moved towards a focus...