The paper analyzes the development of the contemporary globalized financial system as a consequence of the innovations introduced by private markets, but mostly the strategy of the governments, particularly the US. This new global financial system, based on the floating dollar, generated many...

The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient strategy for managing fixed-income portfolios in crisis periods. We use the volatility ratio model of Briere and Szafarz (2008) and the Expected Tail Loss (ETL) approach of Litzenberger and Modest (2008). Our methodology is applied to U.S. and...

Using long time series for sovereign bond markets of fifteen industrialized economies from 1875 to 2009, I find that financial market integration by the end of the 20th century was higher than in earlier periods and exhibited a J-shaped trend with a trough in the 1920s. The main reason for the...

This paper shows that geographical investor heterogeneity strongly influences sovereign risk. While standard sovereign debt models mainly attribute the absence of sovereign defaults to foreign creditor retaliation, a new theoretical literature argues that domestic creditors also affect borrowing...

In the context of both the reluctance of China to make its Yuan flexible and the current havoc of the sovereign debt markets in Europe, the philosophical debate about the pros and cons of fixed versus flexible exchange rates leaves out an important superior alternative system: flexible spot...

This paper defines a “crisis-robust portfolio” that satisfies the minimal crisis-to-quiet time volatility ratio. This type of portfolio is less demanding for the investor than a regime-wise asset allocation. Although general, the concept of a crisis-robust portfolio is especially pertinent...

During the last decade, derivatives markets became an asset class of their own and influenced the financial landscape strongly. While the financial sector contributes positively to overall economic growth in many studies up to the mid nineties, a positive contribution of the financial sector to...

Using long time series for sovereign bond markets of fifteen industrialized economies from 1875 to 2009, I find that financial market integration by the end of the 20th century was higher than in earlier periods and exhibited a J-shaped trend with a trough in the 1920s. The main reason for the...

This paper seeks to add to the current debate about financial development and growth in the emerging world by looking at how different financial systems evolve: how and why financial structures change during various stages of development, how best to measure them, and seeing what practical...

During the last decade, derivatives markets became an asset class of their own and influenced the financial landscape strongly. While the financial sector contributes positively to overall growth in many studies up the mid nineties, a positive contribution of the financial sector to economic...