The optimal bond-stock mix is examined in light of an apparent inconsistency between the Tobin Separation Theorem and the advice of popular investment advisors which has been pointed out by Canner et al. (1997). It is shown that the apparent inconsistency is largely explicable in terms of the...

In this paper we analyze and interpret the quote price dynamics of 100 NYSE stocks stratified by trade frequency. We specify an error-correction model for the log difference of the bid and the ask price with the spread acting as the error-correction term, and include as regressors the...

There is now a wide array of GARCH models available that are able to capture many important features of a univariate return time series. However, a lot of questions still remain open about which models are suitable for capturing the dynamics of multivariate return time series. This paper...

The paper describes an analogy between two fields of study inspired by 'folk science' in distant scientific disciplines: financial economics and pharmacology. As the methodology of ethnopharmacology is much more developed than the methodology of scientific investigation of technical analysis,...

In 1997 the U.S. Treasury introduced Inflation Indexed (or Protected) Securities with substantial promotional fanfare. Yet, due in part to what some in the finance profession have described as a quot;tax disadvantagequot; placed upon TIPS, many are questioning whether they should appeal to a...

We examine the effects of liquidity, default and personal taxes on the relative yields of Treasuries and municipals using a generalized model with liquidity risk. The municipal yield model includes liquidity as a state factor. Using a unique transaction dataset, we are able to estimate the...

Over the years numerous portfolio performance measures have been proposed. In general they are designed to capture some particular enhancement that might result from active management. However, if a principal uses a measure to judge an agent, then the agent has an incentive to game the measure....

Empirical evidence shows that observed macroeconomic fundamentals have little explanatory power for nominal exchange rates (the exchange rate determination puzzle). On the other hand, the recent microstructure approach to exchange rates has shown that most exchange rate volatility at short to...

We extend the Lucas asset pricing tree economy to a heterogeneous population. Perturbative methods are applied to explicitly calculate the second order response of returns to heterogeneity. We determine the status of various stylized facts. For example, we find that the equity premium always...

Risk managers use portfolios to diversify away the un-priced risk of individual securities. In this paper, we compare the benefits of portfolio diversification for downside risk in case returns are normally distributed with the case fat tailed distributed returns. The downside risk of a security...