This study was prepared by Beate Schirwitz while she was working at the Ifo Institute’s Dresden Branch. It was completed in February 2012 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law, Management, and Economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in July 2012. It focuses on a...

Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) provides an elegant mathematical framework for the efficient portfolio allocation problem. Despite its exceptional popularity, MPT poses a number of well-documented problems in practical applications. Especially the fact that it generates notoriously extreme and...