We investigate here the sensitivity of the stock returns of German financial institutions to changes in the shape of the term structure of interest rates. The standard approach has been to measure the interest rate sensitivity of stock returns by focussing solely on changes in a single interest...

The rising sustainability awareness among regulators, consumers and investors results in major sustainability risks for firms. We construct three ESG risk factors (Environmental, Social, and Governance) to quantify the ESG risk exposures of firms. Taking these factors into account significantly...

This paper explores withholding tax non-compliance in the context of dividend taxation. It focuses on a specific type of stock-market transactions around ex-dividend dates, so-called “cum-ex” trades, which caused considerable revenue losses due to illegitimate tax refunds in Germany and...

Theory predicts that market timing in managed portfolios biases Jensen's alpha. However, empirical studies have failed to find evidence this bias actually exists. We tackle this puzzle by showing via a nested model approach and various simulations that, for the bias to become economically...

This article analyses the impact of market climates on the Sharpe ratios (SRs) of funds. On the basis of a common factor model, we derive analytically how market climates impact the SR ndash; taking into account the abilities of fund managers. This applies especially to the mean of the market...

This paper examines the effect of Environmental-, Social- and Governance- (ESG) rating events on returns and risks of stocks based on a large sample of US firms and their MSCI ESG ratings. Using event study methodology, we find that markets react with significant negative abnormal returns to...

We investigate the implications of environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices of firms for the pricing of credit default swaps (CDS). Our evidence indicates that higher ESG ratings mitigate credit risks of U.S. and European firms from 2007 to 2019. The risk mitigation effect is...

This study examines spillover effects following Volkswagen's admission of emissions cheating. We first estimate initial operational losses of 8.45% of Volkswagen's equity market capitalization on the date before the announcement, reputational losses up to five times these losses, and significant...

In 1997, Modigliani and Modigliani developed the risk-adjusted performance measure RAP (often called M-squared) which is by now widely accepted in theory and practice. Their measure has further increased investorsiquest; awareness of risk-adjusted performance measurement. However, this measure...