Empirical and experimental papers nd that high-powered incentives may re-duce performance rather than improve it; a phenomenon referred to as "chokingunder pressure". We show that competition for high ability workers neverthelessleads rms to oer high bonus payments, thereby deliberately...

The current financial market crisis has impressively demonstrated the importance of aneffective credit risk management for financial institutions. At the same time, the use and thevaluation of credit derivatives has been widely criticised as a result of the crisis. Over the pastdecade, credit...

This paper analyzes the determinants of alternative automobile fuel regulation and developmentsupport with a particular focus on methanol fuel. We find that embedded interests, bureaucraticreforms, and political circumstances in the Chinese national, provincial, and municipalgovernments have all...

Based on German data between 1999 and 2007, we analyze the growth factors of SMEs andcontrast them with those of large firms. Differences show up both in balance sheet and employmentgrowth. While we conrm earlier results on inherent growth structures and the inuence of firm age,we derive several...

Welche Einflussfaktoren bestimmen die Spreadentwicklung im Kapitalmarktsegment derBanken im Verlauf der Finanzkrise? Unter Verwendung der Regressionsanalyse werden dieDeterminanten von Asset-Swap- (ASW) und Credit-Default-Swap- (CDS) Spreads ausgewähltereuropäischer Banken im Zeitraum April...

Several top deals already closed, a still highly fragmented industry and strong pressure for furtherconsolidation following the financial crisis – renewable energy certainly has become a red-hot topic inM&A. Surveying 220 companies in the solar photovoltaic, utility and financial sector as...

This paper empirically investigates the risk and performance of three types of alternative betaproducts over the January 2002 to September 2009 time period: funds of hedge funds (FHFs),investable hedge fund indices (IHFIs), and hedge fund replication strategies (HFRS). Weshow that IHFIs are true...

National borders are still strong barriers for mergers and acquisitions inEurope. We estimate a gravity equation model based on NUTS 2-regionsand find that the restraining impact of national borders decreased byabout a third between 1990 and 2007. However, there has been nosignificant change...

Implied Base Correlations of Single-tranche CDOs on standardized Credit Indices such asthe iTraxx Europe have been used in the credit derivatives market for price communication.During the financial crisis, implied correlations have been quite volatile indicating thegrowing fraction of systematic...

Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) were established in Europe in 2000 and have grown to a sizeof over 200 bn US$. Some issuers use a full replication strategy while others prefer a swapbased approach. The ETF are dealt parallelly in the primary and in the secondary market, asnew ETFs can be created at...