In the first essay, I decompose inflation risk into (i) a part that is correlated with real returns on the market portfolio and factors that determine investor’s preferences and investment opportunities and (ii) a residual part. I show that only the first part earns a risk premium. All nominal Treasury bonds, including the nominal money-market account, are equally exposed to the residual part except inflation-protected Treasury bonds, which provide a means to hedge it. Every investor should put 100% of his wealth in the market portfolio and inflation-protected Treasury bonds and hold a zero-investment portfolio of nominal Treasury bonds and the nominal money market account. In the second essay, I solve the dynamic asset allocation problem of finite lived, constant relative risk averse investors who face inflation risk and can invest in cash, nominal bonds, equity, and inflation-protected bonds when the investment opportunityset is determined by the expected inflation rate. I estimate the model with nominal bond, inflation, and stock market data and show that if expected inflation increases, then investors should substitute inflation-protected bonds for stocks and they should borrow cash to buy long-term nominal bonds. In the lastessay, I discuss how heterogeneity in preferences among investors withexternal non-addictive habit forming preferences affects the equilibrium nominal term structure of interest rates in a pure continuous time exchange economy and complete securities markets. Aggregate real consumption growth and inflation are exogenously specified and contain stochastic components thataffect their means andvolatilities. There are two classes of investors who have external habit forming preferences and different localcurvatures oftheir utility functions. The effects of time varying risk aversion and different inflation regimes on the nominal short rate and the nominal market price of risk are explored, and simple formulas for nominal bonds, real bonds, and inflation risk premia that can be numerically evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation techniques are provided.

Univ., Diss.--Stockholm, 2006. / Enth. 3 Beitr.

Universiẗat, Diss./07--Ingolstadt, 2006.

Au cours de la dernière décennie, l'Union Européenne a instauré une réglementation environnementale afin de limiter les émissions de Gaz à Effet de Serre sur son territoire. Ceci a contribué à la mise en place d'un marché du carbone européen (EU ETS) où s'échangent des certificats d'émission de CO2 (les EUA et les CER) ainsi que des produits dérivés reliés à ceux-ci. Ce mémoire aura pour objectif d'évaluer et de comparer différents modèles afin de représenter le prix des certificats d'émission et de tarifer les produits dérivés des marchés du carbone. / During the last decade, the European Union has regulated emissions of Greenhouse Gases on its own territory. Consequently, a European Carbon Market (EU ETS) is currently emerging where CO2 emission certificates (EUA and CER) and derivatives are traded on Exchanges. The objectif of this research is to evaluate and compare different models to represent the emission certificates' price and to price derivatives of the carbon markets. / L'analyse statistique des données a été effectuée avec le logiciel R.

This thesis, “Empirical Asset Pricing and Investment Strategies”, examines a number of topics related to portfolio choice, asset pricing, and strategic and tactical asset allocation. The first two papers treat the predictability of asset returns. Since at least the mid-1980s until quite recently, the conventional wisdom has been that it is possible to predict the return on, for example, an index of stocks. However, a series of recent papers have challenged this conventional wisdom. I answer this challenge and show that it is possible to predict returns if structural changes in the underlying economy are taken into account. The third paper examines the comovement between stocks and bonds. I show how it is possible to improve the composition of a portfolio consisting of these two asset classes by taking into account how the comovement changes over time. All three papers are self-contained and can therefore be read in any order. The first paper is entitled “Structural Breaks in Asset Return Predictability: Can They Be Explained?” Here I investigate whether predictability has changed over time and, if so, whether it is possible to tie the change to any underlying economic variables. Dividend yield and the short interest rate are often used jointly as instruments to predict the return on stocks, but several researchers present evidence that the relation has undergone a structural break. I use a model that extends the conventional structural breaks models to allow both for smooth transitions from one state to another (with a break as a special case), and for transitions that depend on a state variable other than time. The latter allows me to directly test whether, for example, the business cycle influences how the instruments predict returns. The results suggest that this is not the case. However, I do find evidence of a structural change primarily in how the instruments predict returns for large firms. The change differs from a break in that it appears to be an extended non-linear transition during the period 1993—1997. After the change, the short rate does not predict returns at all. Dividend yield, on the other hand, is strongly significant, and the return has become more sensitive to it. In the second paper, “Restoring the Predictability of Equity Returns,” I take another perspective on predictability and structural shifts. Several recent papers have questioned the predictability of equity returns, potentially implying serious negative consequences for investment decision-making. With return data including the 1990s, variables that previously predicted returns, such as the dividend yield, are no longer significant and results of out-of-sample tests are often weak. A possible reason is that the underlying structure of the economy has changed. I use an econometric model that allows for regime shifts over time as well as due to changes in a state variable, in this case the price-earnings ratio. This makes it possible to separate influences from these two sources and to determine whether one or both sources have affected return predictability. The results indicate that, first, a structural change occurred during the 1990s, and, second, that the unusually high level of price earnings in the late 1990s and early 2000s temporarily affected predictability at the 12-month horizon. In the third paper, “Coupling and Decoupling: Changing Relations between Stock and Bond Market Returns,” I investigate stock-bond comovement. The correlation between stocks and bonds has changed dramatically over the last ten years, introducing a new type of risk for portfolio managers, namely, correlation risk. I use GARCH estimates of stock volatility, simple regressions, and regime-switching econometric models to assess whether level of volatility, or changes in volatility, can be used to explain some of the changes in comovement in seven different countries. As regards volatility level, strong support is found in almost all countries to suggest that high volatility predicts lower, or negative, comovement. I argue that this can be evidence of a market-timing type of behavior. As for changes in volatility, the results are more mixed. Only for the U.S. market do I find strong support to conclude that large changes tend to coincide with lower, or negative, comovement. This could be evidence of a flight-to-quality (or cross-market hedging) type of behavior. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2007</p>

This thesis consists of three essays in behavioral finance: One for the Gain, Three for the Loss is a study of loss aversion in portfolio choice. Using historical returns, I find that the pain of a loss must be greater than three times the pleasure of a gain for investors to hold finitely leveraged portfolios. For lower rates of loss aversion, in particular those proposed in the earlier experimental literature, portfolio allocation to risky assets is infinite. All Guts, No Glory: Trading and Diversification among Online Investors explores the cross-sectional portfolio performance of 16,831 investors at an online discount brokerage firm. Investors hold undiversified portfolios, show a strong preference for risk, and trade aggressively. I show that investors with high portfolio turnover underperform their benchmarks. The degree of diversification, a proxy for investor skill, has a separate and distinct positive effect on performance. Equity Mutual Fund Flows and Stock Returns in Sweden uses time series methods to characterize the relation between unexpected flows to equity mutual funds and returns on the Swedish stock market. I find that concurrent unexpected flows and returns are strongly positively correlated. Unexpected flows have a distinct effect on returns even when other risk factors are considered. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2004

In this study, we address two research questions: 1) Can we identify bear market episodes in Australia in the past 20 years? 2) How do investors’ moods change as stock market conditions enter into a bear phase. To address the first question, we use a pattern recognition algorithm, called the penalised LSE approach. By defining bear markets as those stock market regimes where the average returns are statistically significantly negative or below the risk free rate, we are able to detect two bear market periods in Australia in the past 20 years. These are the November 1987 to February 1988 and the April 2000 to May 2000 periods. To address the second question, we study the change in investors’ attitudes to varieties of systematic risk and the aggregate number and dollar value of shares traded in portfolios as a result of the regime switch from pre-bear to bear period. Out of the 7 categories of risk considered in this study, the transition from pre-bear to bear regime in both sample periods had a significant impact mainly on investors’ attitude toward the size risk factor. Investors systematically became more sensitive to firm size as stock market conditions entered into the 1987⁄1988 bear market. In the later sample period, investors’ reaction to firm size was more selective as it depended on the characteristics of the stocks that made up their portfolios. We also find that the regime switches resulted in lower portfolio trading volumes. Based on these results we infer that the November 1987-February 1988 bear market evoked a general sad mood, while the April 2000-May 2000 bear market stirred up both angry and sad feelings in market participants depending on the composition of stocks in their portfolios.

Calif., Univ., Dep. of Management Science and Engineering, Diss.--Stanford, 2004. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich. - Enth. 4 Beitr.

Minn., Univ. of Minnesota, Diss.--Minneapolis, 2004. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich. - Enth. 3 Beitr.

Conn., Yale Univ., Diss.--New Haven, 2005. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich. - Enth. 3 Beitr.