Initiated by the seminal work of Diamond/Dybvig (1983) and Diamond (1984), advances in the theory of financial intermediation have sharpened our understanding of the theoretical foundations of banks as special financial institutions. What makes them "unique" is the combination of accepting...

The paper presents an empirical analysis of the alledged transformation of the financial systems in the three major European economies, France, Germany and the UK. Based on a unified data set developed on the basis of national accounts statistics, and employing a new and consistent method of...

As financial stability has gained focus in economic policymaking, the demand for analyses of financial stability and the consequences of economic policy has increased. Alternative macroeconomic models are available for policy analyses, and this paper evaluates the usefulness of some models from...

We analyze the advice contained in a sample of 237 investment letters over the 1980-1992 period. Each newsletter recommends a mix of equity and cash. We construct portfolios based on these recommendations and find that only a small number of the newsletters appear to have higher average returns...

This paper evaluates persistence in the performance of institutional equity managers. We build on recent work on conditional performance evaluation, using time-varying conditional expected returns and risk measures. We find evidence that the investment performance of pension fund managers...

This paper presents evidence that the traditional banking business of accepting deposits and making loans has declined significantly in the US in recent years. There has been a switch from directly held assets to pension funds and mutual funds. However, banks have maintained their position...

Throughout the past year, on-site visits to financial service firms were conducted to review and evaluate their financial risk management systems. The commercial banking analysis covered a number of North American super-regionals and quasi-money center institutions as well as several firms...

Throughout the past year, on-site visits to financial service firms were conducted to review and evaluate their risk management systems. In the insurance sector, this evaluation covered a number of prominent life/health and property/casualty insurers, both in the U.S. and abroad. The information...

In this work authors analyze separate issues of CIS currency integration. They analyze the role of fiscal policy on the territory of the currency union from the point of view of economic development stabilization. The work includes empirical analysis of stablization characteristics of CIS fiscal...

How are the risks and returns of industrial and market portfolios altered as a result of terrorist events? This paper investigates the effects of five international terrorist attacks on equities listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange. It uses an event study methodology to explore the...