This study identifies empirically the impact of various macroeconomic factors on the default risk premium. Using monthly data for the period 1970-2010 for the U.S., our estimations indicate that the monetary policy aggregates, risk-free interest rate, term structure of interest rates, inflation,...

A striking feature of the United States stock market is the tendency of days with very large movements of stock prices to be clustered together. We define an extreme movement in stock prices as one that can be characterized as a three sigma event; that is, a daily movement in the broad...

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...

The cross-country empirical literature on the finance-growth relationship has debated three propositions. These are (i) Financial deepening has a strong impact on the growth process (ii) Measures of financial “activity” rather than the “size” of the sector plays a more significant role...

This paper analyses the determinants of the changes in non-performing loans (NPL) ratio in selected European emerging markets. The model was estimated on a panel dataset using fixed effects estimator for seven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries between Q3:2007 and Q3:2012. The analyzed...

We revisit the relation between stock market volatility and macroeconomic activity using a new class of component models that distinguish short-run from long-run movements. We formulate models with the long-term component driven by inflation and industrial production growth that are in terms of...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the 'Journal of Banking and Finance', 2014, 38, 89-105.<P> This paper documents that speed is crucially important for high frequency trading strategies based on U.S. macroeconomic news releases. Using order level data of the highly liquid S&P500...</p>

This paper suggests that non-fundamental component in asset prices is one of the drivers of the financial and credit cycle. The presented model builds on the financial accelerator literature by including a stock market where limitedly-liable investors trade stocks of productive firms with...

“La negociación en curso para suscribir un Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) entre Colombia y Estados Unidos incluye la estructuración de un capítulo sobre Servicios Financieros, que definirá las disciplinas que gobernarán el intercambio de esos servicios entre las partes. Con el objeto de...

It is generally accepted that excessive exuberance or gloom in investor sentiment contributes to booms and crashes in share prices. However, views differ on the merits of active policy intervention due to gaps in our understanding of the transmission mechanism. To fill this gap we apply a fully...