The use of GARCH models with stable Paretian innovations in financial modeling has been recently suggested in the literature. This class of processes is attractive because it allows for conditional skewness and leptokurtosis of financial returns without ruling out normality. This contribution...

Since financial derivatives are key instruments for risk taking as well as risk reduction, it is only straightforward to examine their role in currency crises. This paper addresses this issue by investigating the impact of currency futures trading on the underlying exchange rates. After a...

Current discussions about public and private pension plans often state that the stock market is less risky in the long run than in the short run. Pension plans with their rather long planning horizon are therefore asked to increase the allocation to the stock market. Such statements, however,...

This paper investigates persistence of Swiss consumer price inflation using aggregate and disaggregate inflation data covering 1983-2008. We document that persistence of sectoral inflation rates is below persistence of aggregate inflation. Our main finding is that inflation persistence...