Does financial globalization lead to contagion? We scrutinize linkages between international stock markets in a long historical perspective (1880-2014). Our results highlight that without globalization, contagion cannot exist. However, if cross-market correlations are very high, globalization...

During World War II, the spread between the 3 percent rentes and the Vichy government bonds reflected French investors' perception of the shifting fortunes of war and the willingness of future post-war government to repay the debt issued by the collaborationist regime. Structural breaks in this...

Historians have long wondered whether the Southern Confederacy had a realistic chance at winning the American Civil War. We provide some quantitative evidence on this question by introducing a new methodology for estimating the probability of winning a civil war or revolution based on decisions...

Bitcoin is a major virtual currency. Using weekly data over the 2010-2013 period, we analyze a Bitcoin investment from the standpoint of a U.S. investor with a diversified portfolio including both traditional assets (worldwide stocks, bonds, hard currencies) and alternative investments...

This study aims to investigate the black market on gold in Paris during the Second World War. Based on documents from the Banque de France and French National archives, we discover that this black market was not so black since it was well known and tolerated by the German army and French police....

This paper compares the performance of various diversification strategies regarding foreign exchange reserves. The aim is to provide central banks with guidelines in portfolio allocation. We pay particular attention to the situation of upward pressures on U.S. interest rates by implementing our...

A body of empirical research in finance has attempted to assess whether stocks associated with sinful behavior (companies selling alcohol, tobacco, gambling activities, etc.) suffer from a market penalty. This question has been less studied in the sovereign bond market, but there is some...

This paper provides an empirical study of bond prices reactions following a repudiation. Based on an original database, it analyses the repudiation by the Soviets of bonds issued under the Tsarist regime. For the two years following the repudiation two striking feature of a representative...