Bank credit to Egypt's private sector decreased over the last decade, despite a recapitalized banking system and high rates of economic growth. Recent macro-economic turmoil has reinforced the trend. This paper explains the decrease based on credit supply and demand considerations by 1)...

We study whether the financial analysts' concern to maintain friendly relationships with firms' managers in order to preserve their access to ‘soft' qualitative information entice them to issue pessimistic (“earnings surprise management” hypothesis) or optimistic (“management access”...

We analyze the determinants of financial analysts' forecast accuracy. The empirical literature has enlightened variables related to analysts, to firms or both, in explaining the magnitude of forecast accuracy. But this literature does not explain in a common framework two opposite theoretical...

This paper presents a validation framework for collateral requirements or margins on a derivatives exchange. It can be used by investors, risk managers, and regulators to check the accuracy of a margining system. The statistical tests presented in this study are based either on the number,...

This paper presents a new tool for validating Value-at-Risk (VaR) models. This tool, called the Risk Map, jointly accounts for the number and the magnitude of the VaR exceptions and graphically summarizes all information about the performance of a risk model. It relies on the concept of VaR...

This paper presents a new method to validate risk models: the Risk Map. This method jointly accounts for the number and the magnitude of extreme losses and graphically summarizes all information about the performance of a risk model. It relies on the concept of a super exception, which is...