Using data on international equity portfolio allocations by U.S. mutual funds, we estimate a portfolio expression derived from a standard mean-variance portfolio model extended with portfolio frictions. The optimal portfolio depends on the previous month a ...
This thesis is composed of two essays that study the effectiveness of shareholder democracy.In the first essay, I analyze the firm value implications of shareholder-initiated proposals. I show that managerial resistance precludes half of shareholder-init ...
This thesis examines how banks choose their optimal capital structure and cash reserves in the presence of regulatory measures.The first chapter, titled Bank Capital Structure and Tail Risk, presents a bank capital structure model in which bank assets ...
After the financial crisis, policy rates in the major advanced economies have moved downwards to near/below zero. Some countries have experienced an increase in house prices and an expansion of mortgages. Also, there have been considerable changes in the m ...
Low-for-long nominal interest rates have resulted in strong growth in mort- gage lending and real house prices in Switzerland. Domestically-oriented, small banks have mostly contributed to this expansion in mortgage lending while the two big, global system ...
This thesis develops three models that study the motivation of various agents to take on debt,
and the impact that excessive financial leverage can have on social welfare.
In the chapter "Short-term Bank Leverage and the Value of Liquid Reserves", the ince ...
The financial crisis of 2007-2009 drew attention to the essential role of banks for the macroeconomy and to the importance of having a resilient financial sector. A vulnerability in the financial sector spills over to the real economy and can drive it into ...
This thesis examines predictability and seasonality in the cross-section of stock returns. The first chapter, titled ``Infrequent Rebalancing, Return Autocorrelation, and Seasonality,'' shows that a model of infrequent rebalancing can explain specific pred ...
The search for a market design that ensures stable bank funding is at the top of regulators' policy agenda. This paper empirically shows that the central counterparty (CCP)-based euro interbank repo market features this stability. Using a unique and compre ...
Pension funds only quite recently have explored alternative assets, prodded by financial crises that devastated equity returns and led to low bond returns. We assess the addition of alternative assets to pension fund portfolios in terms of the total benefi ...
This thesis proposes three studies that provide novel empirical evidence on how different types of VCs' characteristics signal the quality of an entrepreneurial venture and influence investment strategies of funds subject to self-regulation. In the first s ...
This thesis analyzes the interrelation between market structure and price formation in credit derivatives markets. Traditionally, credit derivatives are traded in relatively opaque over-the-counter markets in which trading is segmented and subject to many ...
We develop a finite horizon continuous time market model, where risk-averse investors maximize utility from terminal wealth by dynamically investing in a risk-free money market account, a stock, and a defaultable bond, whose prices are determined via equil ...
Livestock conservation is changing rapidly in light of policy developments, climate change and diversifying market demands. The last decade has seen a step change in technology and analytical approaches available to define and manage Farm Animal Genetic Re ...
Electronic intermediaries have become pervasive in sales transactions for many durables, such as cars, power tools, and apartments. Yet only recently have they successfully tackled the challenge of enabling parties to share such goods. A key impediment to ...
I started my Ph.D. studies in the Fall 2008, a period ex-post perceived as being at the core of the Financial Crisis. At that time my ideas were vague and I struggled to find a good research topic. As surprising as it might appear, in one single week the d ...
Advisors often manage multiple versions of a fund. These "twins" have the same manager and similar performance but are sold to different investors with differing abilities to select and monitor managers. Comparing investor flows in retail and institutional ...
In the first chapter of this thesis, I empirically show that the time delay firms face in raising outside capital affects cash holdings. I exploit the 2005 US Securities Offering Reform (the Reform) as a quasi-natural experiment. For a subset of large publ ...
This paper analyzes competition between mutual funds in a multiple funds version of the model of Hugonnier and Kaniel (2010). We characterize the set of equilibria for this portfolio management game and show that there exists a unique Pareto optimal equili ...
We analyze the implications of dynamic flows on a mutual fund's portfolio decisions. In our model, myopic investors dynamically allocate capital between a riskless asset and an actively managed fund which charges fraction-of-fund fees. The presence of dyna ...