This paper examines U.S. REIT leverage decisions and their effects on risk and return. We find that REITs are highly levered relative to industrial firms, with an average market leverage of 46 percent over our 1990-2012 sample period. Using partial adjustment models, we further find that the...

The paper concentrates on value and size effects in country portfolios. It contributes to academic literature threefold. First, I provide fresh evidence that the value and size effects may be useful in explaining the cross-sectional variation in country returns. The computations are based on a...

This research studies mutual fund performance in three selected Asian countries — China, Singapore and Thailand — for twelve years during 2000 to 2011 to determine whether any equity mutual funds significantly outperformed, or beat the market. The study begins with direct and simple...

This paper examines U.S. REIT leverage decisions and their effects on risk and return. We document that REITs are highly levered relative to industrial and high debt capacity firms, with an average market leverage of 46 percent over our 1990-2012 sample period. Using dynamic partial adjustment...

I present a methodology for evaluating the performance of fixed-income investment managers, over the last ten years. A cross-section of such managers reveals that alpha does not reflect most non-market performance, unless a regime-switching model is used. The quest is for arriving at qualitative...

Research on voluntary compliance with accepted international standards has paid overwhelming attention to financial reporting standards, but not to investment performance standards. Previous research on the adoption of the Global Investment Performance Standards has overlooked the unique region...

In this paper we study the performance and performance persistence of international equity mutual funds with a focus on fund investment styles. Using a best-fit index methodology, we sort funds yearly based on the style dimensions of size and value/growth, as well as on regional categories...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of US mutual funds that invest primarily in emerging market equities and bonds. Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts the Morningstar classification of mutual funds and uses the Lipper US Mutual Fund Database through...

Faced with historically low interest rates, investors are looking further into illiquid assets such as infrastructure in search of alternative sources of income, better diversification and a long-term investment perspective. This paper analyzes the key performance and risk characteristics of the...

This article reports a study on the performance of mutual equity funds in Brazil from January 2002 to August 2012. For the analyses, Carhart's four-factor model is used as the benchmark for performance, and bootstrap procedures are applied to separate skill from luck. The results show that...