This paper implements strategies that use macroeconomic variables to select European equity mutual funds, including Pan-European, country, and sector funds. We find that several macro variables are useful in locating funds with future outperformance, and that country-specific mutual funds...

We are the first to investigate the cross-section of stock returns in the new emerging equity markets, the so-called frontier emerging markets. Our unique survivorship-bias free data set consists of more than 1,400 stocks over the period 1997 to 2008 and covers 24 of the most liquid frontier...

We examine the predictive effect of sentiment on the cross-section of stock returns across different economic states. The degree of mispricing and the subsequent price correction can be different between economic expansion and recession because of the limits of arbitrage and short sale...

This paper determines whether the world market risk, country-specific total risk, and country-specific idiosyncratic risk are priced in an international capital asset pricing model (ICAPM). The paper also tests if the price of risk associated with each factor is common across countries....

The purpose of this paper is to examine the holiday effect in Thailand. The holiday effect is the phenomenon in which the stock returns are abnormally high before holidays. There is no complete explanation for this phenomenon though there are many studies that state that the holiday effect has...

In this paper we analyze the contribution of hedge funds in optimal asset allocations for different investor clienteles. The preferences of specific institutional investors are captured by implementing a Bayesian asset allocation framework that incorporates heterogeneous expectations regarding...

This paper shows that the stylized fact of average mutual fund underperformance documented in the literature stems from expansion periods when funds have statistically significant negative risk-adjusted performance and not recession periods when risk-adjusted fund performance is positive. These...

In this paper, I analyze the role of credit risk in explaining cross-sectional stock returns. I utilize Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads to construct a credit risk factor-mimicking portfolio, which I label as Distressed-minus-Stable (DMS). As CDS contracts are written mainly on large firms, our...

The predictability of the equity risk premium is a central and controversial issue in finance. The Risk Premium Factor model is a recent and novel approach to forecasting the equity risk premium and the equity market's level and P/E. This article aims to overcome the main limitation of, and...