infonet-economy

According to the Basel regulation banks may use internal risk models to measure interest rate risk and calculate regulatory capital requirements. Under its pillar II the Basel framework grants leeway to banks in their choice of these models. We therefore focus on how well interest rate models describe real interest rate movements empirically and which impact the model choice has on…

Networks can establish business connections and facilitate information flows; but how valuable are they in competitive settings, such as in the deal generation of private equity funds? We find that educational ties between management teams of acquiring fund and target company are frequent (around 15%) and increase the odds of winning a deal (by 79%). When competing with other funds,…

We address the heated debate over the staggered board. One theory claims that a staggered board facilitates entrenchment of inefficient management and thus harms corporate value. Consequently, some institutional investors and shareholder rights advocates have argued for the elimination of the staggered board. The opposite theory is that staggered boards are value enhancing since they…

We develop a new tail risk measure for hedge funds to examine the impact of tail risk on fund performance and to identify the sources of tail risk. We find that tail risk affects the cross-sectional variation in fund returns, and investments in both, tail-sensitive stocks as well as options, drive tail risk. Moreover, managerial incentives and discretion as well as exposure to…

We document a drift in exchange rates before monetary policy changes across major economies. Currencies tend to depreciate by 0.7 percent over ten days before policy rate cuts and appreciate by 0.5 percent before policy rate increases. We show that available fixed income instruments allow to accurately forecast monetary policy decisions and thus that the drift is foreseeable and…

The literature on IPO long-term performance generally focuses on three- to five-year post-issue time horizons. Research published in the 2000s shows that the apparent underperformance of IPOs docu-mented in the 1990s disappears when the different risk exposures between IPO and mature firms are accounted for by using a Carhart (1997) factor model. In this paper, we show that a sample…

The financialization of crude oil markets over the last decade has changed the behavior of oil prices in fundamental ways. In this paper, we uncover the gradual transformation of crude oil from a physical to a financial asset. Although economic demand and supply factors continue to play an important role, recent indicators associated with financialization have emerged since 2008. We…

This paper analyzes whether the financial distress of a firm affects the investment decisions of non-distressed competitors. On average, firms in distress impose indirect costs to non-distressed competitors by increasing costs of credit in the industry and hence restricting credit access and investment. These average negative spillover effects continue to hold in the absence of…

Entrepreneurs and Investors found ventures for transferring technology and bringing it closer to the market.
Focusing on a situation in which the investor exercises hold-up at the disadvantage of the entrepreneur, this paper works on three points: We identify (1) conditions which make hold-up possible, and discuss (2) measures which help entrepreneurs to protect themselves…