In this paper, we apply Markowitz’s approach of portfolio selection to government bond portfolios. As a main feature of our analysis, we use term structure models to estimate expected returns, return variances, and covariances of different bonds. Our empirical study for the German market shows that a small number of risky bonds is sufficient to reach very promising predicted risk-return profile...

The objective of this paper is to situate the MENA area within the emerging markets universe. We first discuss the various components of market emergence and generate four bootstrapped indexes reflecting market size, market activity, market pricing and transparency. We then draw inter-regional and country-level comparisons using a probit model and a hierarchical cluster analysis. Our results su...

This paper investigates the performance of hedge funds adjusted for higher order risk factors. Traditional risk-adjusted performance measures are subject to size distorted in the presence of skewness and kurtosis. A residual augmented least squares approach to model higher order risk moments in returns allows us to estimate a robust risk-adjusted performance measure for hedge funds. In a compar...

Recent literature on optimal investment has stressed the difference between the impact of risk and the impact of ambiguity also called Knightian uncertainty on investors’ decisions. In this paper, we show that a decision maker’s attitude towards ambiguity is similarly crucial for investment decisions. We capture the investor’s individual ambiguity attitude by applying α-MEU preferences to a sta...

I develop an analytical general-equilibrium model to explain economic sources of businesscycle pattern of aggregate stock market returns. With concave production functions and capital accumulation, a technology shock has a pro-cyclical direct effect and a counter-cyclical indirect effect on expected returns. The indirect effect, reflecting the “feedback” effect of consumers’ behavior on asset r...

As risk aversion approaches infinity, the portfolio of an investor with utility over consumption at time T is shown to converge to the portfolio consisting entirely of a bond maturing at time T : Previous work on bond allocation requires a specific model for equities, the term structure, and the investor’s utility function. In contrast, the only substantive assumption required for the analysis ...

I consider the saving and investment decisions of American and Italian consumers in a lifecycle model with temptation preferences. Comparing the choices with and without Social Security protection, I show that savings are postponed, less wealth is accumulated, and the portfolio share held in equities at retirement is larger with Social Security. Social Security distorts the decisions of agents ...

There exist two separate branches of finance that require advanced quantitative techniques: the "Q" area of derivatives pricing, whose task is to "extrapolate the present"; and the "P" area of quantitative risk and portfolio management, whose task is to "model the future". We briefly trace the history of these two branches of quantitative finance, highlighting their different goals and challeng...

The comparative statics of the optimal portfolios across individuals is carried out for a continuous-time complete market model, where the risky assets price process follows a joint geometric Brownian motion with time-dependent and deterministic coefficients. It turns out that the indirect utility functions inherit the order of risk aversion (in the Arrow-Pratt sense) from the von Neumann-Morge...

In the presence of skewness, portfolio selection requires to consider competing and conflicting objectives. We utilize polynomial goal programming to determine the optimal portfolio from emerging markets industries. The first part of this paper is concerned with an industry level analysis of the effects of portfolio selection when the skewness is taken into account. The second part of the paper...