This paper develops a two-country OLG model under the assumption that investors are on a Bayesian learning path. While investors from both countries receive identical information flows, domestic investors start off with less precise prior beliefs concerning foreign fundamentals. On a learning...

One key stylized fact in the empirical option pricing literature is the existence of an implied volatility surface (IVS). The usual approach consists of fitting a linear model linking the implied volatility to the time to maturity and the moneyness, for each cross section of options data....

We show that predictable covariances between means and variances of stock returns may have a first order effect on portfolio composition. In an international asset menu that includes both European and North American small capitalization equity indices, we find that a three-state, heteroskedastic...

Real-life decision makers are often forced to estimate the likelihood of uncertain future events. Usually, economists assume that agents behave as though they are fully rational, employing statistical rules to assess probabilities, and that they maximize expected utility. Psychological studies,...

We systematically examine the comparative predictive performance of a number of alternative linear and non-linear models for stock and bond returns in the G7 countries. Besides Markov switching, threshold autoregressive (TAR), and smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) regime switching...

Prior studies have shown that investment banking affiliations place pressure on analysts to produce optimistic recommendations on the investment bank’s stock-clients. Our analysis of a large sample of recommendations issued from 1995 through 2003 indicates that a mutual fund affiliation also...

We calculate optimal portfolio choices for a long-horizon, risk-averse investor who diversifies among European stocks, bonds, real estate, and cash, when excess asset returns are predictable. Simulations are performed for scenarios involving different risk aversion levels, horizons, and...

We use multivariate regime switching vector autoregressive models to characterize the time-varying linkages among the Irish stock market, one of the top world performers of the 1990s, and the US and UK stock markets. We find that two regimes, characterized as bear and bull states, are required...

We show that when in Lucas trees model the process for dividends is described by a lattice tree subject to infrequent but observable structural breaks, in equilibrium recursive rational learning may inflate the equity risk premium and reduce the risk-free interest rate for low levels of risk...

We use multivariate regime switching vector autoregressive models to characterize the time-varying linkages among short-term interest rates (monetary policy) and stock returns in the Irish, the US and UK markets. We find that two regimes, characterized as bear and bull states, are required to...