The aim of this study is the analysis of so called socially responsible investments (SRI). First, the performance of SRI equity investment funds and equity indices is investigated using Jensen´s alpha as performance measure. The analysis considers market timing strategies of the fund management...

This paper first highlights the structural features of shadow banking in the euro area, focussing on investment funds. It then discusses the potential systemic risks that the recent expansion of the investment fund sector presents. While investment funds provide important intermediation services...

The rapid development of life insurance and its dissemination throughout the world, and the emergence of new types of life insurance products, in order to meet the needs of citizens, raises the question of proper legal arrangement of these issues. This article refers to the life insurance...

Long-term persistence of low interest rates and a decline in attractiveness of investing in low-interest bank deposits generate additional demand for investments in investment funds. In such a situation, it is expected to have widespread use of the investment efficiency measures which take into...

Traditionally, U.S. and E.U. are the major economic forces in the world. Today, in the context of economic globalization, relations between the U.S. and E.U. continue to guide the world. Yet the economic crisis and the rise of third world countries are affecting their global share.

Investment funds are key institutions for understanding the dynamics of a country's financial wealth and for analysing the interaction between wealth owners and the macroeconomic policy management. This text has three fundamental objectives: firstly, it seeks to construct a profit proxy of the...

This paper studies the impact of major ECB monetary policy announcements on the portfolio allocation of euro area fund investors, using daily data between 2012 and mid-2016, a period that includes a variety of unconventional measures. We distinguish between active portfolio reallocation, driven...

Investment funds hold a disproportionately larger fraction of domestic relative to foreign stocks. Stock market development and familiarity (language and distance) are considered key determinants for home bias. The literature neglects however that investors often invest in foreign funds...

Successive technical and organizational innovations have modelled the current structure and composition of the fishing industry. The market structure varies considerably between countries and the fish species they catch. There is a generalised global convergence towards an industrial-outsourced...

This paper empirically explores the impact of pension funds on market development. The goal of the paper is to link the credit rating of a country and the development of the financial market. At the same time, we will make a link between the structure and size of pension funds and the...