Standard equity valuation approaches (i.e., DDM, RIM, and DCF model) are derived under the assumption of ideal conditions, such as infinite payoffs and clean surplus accounting. Because these conditions are hardly ever met, we extend the standard approaches, based on the fundamental principle of...

We study the effect of the business cycle on optimal capital structure choice and the benefit to leverage. We propose a regime switching model with a state-dependent cash flow process to capture macroeconomic risk in a firm's cash flow. Our model is parsimonious but still realistic and allows...

We analyze the quality of macroeconomic survey forecasts. Recent findings indicate that they are anchoring biased. This irrationality would challenge the results of a wide range of empirical studies, e.g., in asset pricing, volatility clustering or market liquidity, which rely on survey data to...

This paper analyzes the interday stability of the price process using transaction data. While the vast majority of empirical studies on the microstructure of financial markets rests on the tacit assumption that observed prices are generated by a time-invariant price process, we question this...

The distinction between stationarity, difference stationarity, deterministic trends as well as between short- and long-range dependence has a major impact on statistical conclusions, such as confidence intervals for population quantities or point and interval forecasts. In this paper, recent...

This paper investigates the intraday response of CBOT T-bond futures prices to surprises in headline figures contained in scheduled U.S. macroeconomic news releases. While several previous studies try to find out which releases have a significant impact on prices and volatility in financial...

Several studies indicate that stock option plans are becoming more and more a substantial part of compensation schemes in U.S. companies. This paper argues that for an employer the attractiveness of stock options arises from the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US-GAAP) which...

We estimate the debt capacity of a firm as the critical debt ratio that causes a downgrade in creditworthiness. Unused debt capacities depict the temporal access to external debt funds and measure a firm's financial flexibility. Firms with high unused debt capacities realize a larger fraction of...

The distinction between stationarity, difference stationarity, deterministictrends as well as between short- and long-range dependence has a major impact onstatistical conclusions, such as confidence intervals for population quantities or point and interval forecasts. SEMIFAR models introduced...

This paper compares the attractiveness of floor trading and anonymous electronic trading systems. It is argued that in times of low information intensity the insight into the order book of the electronic trading system provides more valuable information than floor trading, but in times of high...