This paper proposes a consistent approach to discrete time valuation in insurance and finance. This approach uses the growth optimal portfolio as references unit or benchmark. When used as benchmark, it is shown that all benchmarked price processes are supermartingales.

According to the traditional view held in finance returns of assets are determined by complete rationality of decision makers. Rational decisions are defined by a set of axioms that are universal and do not leave room for cultural differences. In this article we show that cultural differences do...

This paper studies the “confidential holdings” of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where thequarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a significant delay through amendments to the Form 13F.Our evidence supports hiding private information as the dominant motive for hedge...

Ende der 90er Jahre schien eine intensive Auswahl der Investments kaum notwendig, da fast jede Aktienanlage deutliche Kursgewinne versprach. Nachdem jähen Absturz an den Börsen haben die Anleger einen beträchtlichen Teilihres Aktienvermögens verloren. Damit rücken wieder verstärkt...

Performance fees for portfolio managers are designed to align the managers' goals withthose of the investors and to motivate managers to aquire "superior" information and tomake better investment decisions. A part of the literature analyzes performance fees on thebasis of market valuation. In...

The question that this paper raise in this paper is how to choose the best mix of countries to diversify internationally? They compare several methods of asset allocation from a Swiss perspective over the period 1988-2001.

Starting from the Merton framework for firm defaults, we provide theanalytics and robustness of the relationship between defaultprobabilities and default correlations. We show that loans with higherdefault probabilities will not only have higher variances but also highercorrelations with other...

In this paper we have developed a financial model of the non-life insurer to provide assistance for the management of the insurance company in making decisions on product, investment and reinsurance mix. The model is based on portfolio theory and recognizes the stochastic nature of and the...

The paper investigates how buyer-supplier firm-specific relationships affect security prices. Starting from the empirical inconsistencies associated with some standard structural models we propose a structural model of firm dependence in a vertically connected network of firms based on cash flow...

We argue that the equity premium puzzle stems from a mismatch of applying mental accounting to experiments on risk aversion but not to the standard consumption based asset pricing model. If, as we suggest, one applies mental accounting consistently in both areas the degrees of risk aversions...