Index insurance has been promoted as a cost-effective risk management alternative for agricultural producers in developing countries. In this paper, we ask whether spatially separated weather variables commonly used in index insurance design, such as rainfall at different weather stations within...

In this paper we introduce a new financial product named Outperformance Certificates PLUS and we provide detailed descriptions of the product specifications. We show that the payoff of an Outperformance Certificates PLUS can be duplicated by the combination of a long position in the underlying...

In this study, an interesting aspect of the secondary market's pricing of the riskiness of insured municipal bonds is examined. Do secondary market investors still consider the underlying intrinsic credit quality of the issuer in pricing insured bonds? Is the pricing of this 'issuer effect'...

In this study, we document evidence of a quot;reversequot; weekend effect - whereby, Monday returns are significantly positive and they are higher than the returns on other days of the week - over an extended period of eleven years (from 1988 to 1998). We also find that the quot;traditionalquot;...

This study examines the information content of Standard & Poor's common stock ranking changes. Since prior studies find Standard & Poor's common stock rankings provide investors with a measure of risk, a ranking change may signify a change in risk. Common stock ranking changes made by Standard &...

This paper examines stock price reactions to changes in Standard & Poor's common stock rankings. Using internal memoranda obtained directly from Standard & Poor's, an event study methodology, and a sample of 191 upgrades and 582 downgrades, we find that the majority of stock price reactions...

This study examines the information content of Standard & Poor's common stock ranking changes. Since prior studies find Standard & Poor's common stock rankings provide investors with a measure of risk, a ranking change may signify a change in risk. Common stock ranking changes made by Standard &...