Refers to previous research on deciding the balance between equities and bonds in investment portfolios and puts forward a model based on a single period correlation to predict future stock‐bond correlations from past interest and growth rates. Explains the concepts involved and uses...

Explains the rating system for US municipal bonds and its effect on borrowing costs, reviews relevant research and provides a study of the factors affecting grading by rating agencies in Virginia using 1995 data. Explains the methodology and presents the results, which identify five significant...

Notes the popularity of index funds with US investors, refers to research on fund performance compared with indexes and presents a study comparing daily returns of S&P 500 index funds with the index itself. Explains the methodology and presents the results, which show that the funds “fall well...

Reports that under a third of the increasing numbers of US citizens needing long‐term care (LTC) in a nursing home pay their own fees; and that Medicaid (health programme for the poor) meets over half of LTC costs. Describes the rules applied to qualify for Medicaid LTC payments, the growth of...

Explains the new US tax rules for calculating the required minimum distributions from employer‐sponsored qualified retirement plans, 403(b) plans and individual retirement accounts, pointing out that when the owner of a tax‐deferred retirement account dies the beneficiary of the fund becomes...

Reports that few Americans plan financially for their retirement and outlines the possible strategies for doing so, referring to relevant research, e.g. company sponsored pension plans, individual retirement accounts and dependence on social security. Surveys students before and after financial...

Notes US efforts to make documents easier to read and reviews previous research on readability. Presents a study of the readability of the investment objective sections of two mutual fund prospectuses, using a sample of college students, the Cloze Readability Procedure and the Flesch readability...

Reviews previous research on the efficiency and performance of financial institutions and uses Siems and Barr’s (1998) data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate the relative productive efficiency of US commercial banks 1984‐1998. Explains the methodology, discusses the input and...