Banks use internal models to optimize risk weights and better account for the specific risk of each asset class. As the choice of a set of risk weights directly amounts to affecting the regulatory capital ratio, economic theory suggests that banks should optimize their risk weights also with...

We study currency risk management in the context of scenario analysis. We develop scenario-based optimization models that jointly determine the portfolio composition and the hedging strategy within each currency. Thus the model prescribes optimal selective hedging policies. We then study...

In 2005-2006 China reformed its stock market by eliminating non-tradable shares. The regulator set general guidelines and then assigned responsibility for implementation to each company. We derive relations that should have been followed by the prices of stocks and exploit a company-level data...

Though overall bank performance from July 2007 to December 2008 was the worst since at least the Great Depression, there is significant variation in the cross-section of stock returns of large banks across the world during that period. We use this variation to evaluate the importance of factors...

Though overall bank performance from July 2007 to December 2008 was the worst since at least the Great Depression, there is significant variation in the cross-section of stock returns of large banks across the world during that period. We use this variation to evaluate the importance of factors...

The 2005-2006 reform of the Chinese stock market, aimed at eliminating nontradeable shares, is used to study the role of asset float on stock prices. The reform implies that holders of nontradeable shares compensate under various forms (cash, bonus shares, warrants) the holders of tradeable...

Nontradable shares (NTS) are an unparalleled feature of the ownership structure of Chinese listed companies and represented a major hurdle to domestic financial market development. After some failed attempts, in 2005 the Chinese authorities have launched a structural reform program aiming at...

We examine the equity premium puzzle with the perspective of the theory of Rational Beliefs Equilibrium (RBE) and show that from the perspective of this theory there is no puzzle. In an RBE agents need to be compensated for the endogenously propagated price uncertainty which is not permitted...

Real stock prices seem to overreact to changes in long-term interest rates. That is, real stock prices drop when long-term interest rates rise (and rise when they fall) more than would be implied by a rational expectations present value model where expectations are based on a vector...

Efficient markets models assert that the price of each asset is equal to the optimal forecast of its ex-post (or fundamental) value, but the models do not imply that the covariances between prices equal the corresponding covariances of ex-post values. We present bounds for covariances and...