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We derive a Bayesian prior from a no-arbitrage affine term structure model and use it to estimate the coefficients of a vector autoregression of a panel of government bond yields, specifying a common time-varying volatility for the disturbances. Results based on US data show that this method improves the precision of both point and density forecasts of the term structure of government bond yields, compared to a fully fledged term structure model with time-varying volatility and to a no-change random walk forecast. Further analysis reveals that the approach might work better than an exact term structure model because it relaxes the requirements that yields obey a strict factor structure and that the factors follow a Markov process. Instead, the cross-equation no-arbitrage restrictions on the factor loadings play a marginal role in producing forecasting gains.

This paper analyses the risk and return characteristics from a merger arbitrage trading strategy in Germany for the first time. The extant literature focuses mainly on data sets from Anglo-American based jurisdictions with mixed results. We argue that because in Germany i) acquisition laws bias consideration toward cash bids thereby decreasing the uncertainty of announced transactions (versus share offers) and ii) the Aufsichstrat (supervisory board with employee participation) has corporate governance oversight over any proposed merger such that only bids tacitly approved by it are likely to be announced in the first instance, a merger arbitrage trading strategy in a German setting will have different risk and return characteristics. To estimate the significance of merger arbitrage returns we construct a realistic measure of risk arbitrage which factors in transaction costs and other practical limitations encountered by arbitrageurs employing this strategy. We also construct two additional portfolios, an equally-weighted portfolio and a value weighted portfolio, for comparison purposes. The results show that the practical risk arbitrage manager portfolio fails to outperform on a risk-adjusted basis indicating that insofar as the German setting yields benefits in the form of lower risk, these are properly priced by the market.

For many financial market professionals worldwide, the era of high finance is over. The times in which bankers and financiers were the primary movers and shakers of both economy and society have come to an abrupt halt. What has this shift meant for the future of capitalism? What has it meant for the future of the financial industry? What about the lives and careers of financial operators who were once driven by utopian visions of economic, social, and personal transformation? And what does it mean for critics of capitalism who have long predicted the end of financial institutions? Hirokazu Miyazaki answers these questions through a close examination of the careers and intellectual trajectories of a group of pioneering derivatives traders in Japan during the 1990s and 2000s.

There was an error in the original publication (Fanelli 2024) [...]

Traditionally, arbitrage refers to simultaneously buying and selling the same financial assets by taking advantage of a price difference in two or more markets. However, the strict sense of arbitrage is hardly obtained after consideration the issues concerning transaction costs and time value of money. By using the identical assets such as Chinese ADRs and their underlying securities traded in different markets in Hong Kong in HK dollar and in New York in US dollar and by constructing a very simple arbitrage trading strategy, this study demonstrates that arbitrage profits are still available with monthly return ranging from 0.5 per cent to 3.8 per cent after considering transaction costs and non-overlap trading time issues. This is a new study to verify this behaviour of an emerging market’s ADRs traded two financial market locations, so adding evidence of inefficiency in trading of China-listed stocks in foreign locations.  

We develop a robust framework for pricing and hedging of derivative securities in discrete-time financial markets. We consider markets with both dynamically and statically traded assets and make minimal measurability assumptions. We obtain abstract (pointwise) fundamental theorem of asset pricing and pricing–hedging duality. Our results are general and, in particular, cover both the so-called model independent case as well as the classical probabilistic case of Dalang–Morton–Willinger. Our analysis is scenario-based: a model specification is equivalent to a choice of scenarios to be considered. The choice can vary between all scenarios and the set of scenarios charged by a given probability measure. In this way, our framework interpolates between a model with universally acceptable broad assumptions and a model based on a specific probabilistic view of future asset dynamics.

We propose a new methodology for forming arbitrage portfolios that utilizes the information contained in firm characteristics for both abnormal returns and factor loadings. The methodology gives maximal weight to risk-based interpretations of characteristics’ predictive power before any attribution is made to abnormal returns. We apply the methodology to simulated economies and to a large panel of U. S. stock returns. The methodology works well in our simulation and when applied to stocks. Empirically, we find the arbitrage portfolio has (statistically and economically) significant alphas relative to several popular asset pricing models and annualized Sharpe ratios ranging from 1.31 to 1.66.

Using a large sample of multinational corporations (MNCs), we examine the location of earnings management within the firm. We posit and find that MNCs manage their consolidated earnings through an orchestrated reporting strategy across subsidiaries over which they exert significant influence. Specifically, we find that headquarters' influence on subsidiary earnings management increases with the degree of subsidiary integration and the extent of earnings management opportunities. Most importantly, we provide evidence that MNCs exploit regulatory arbitrage opportunities arising from cross-country differences in institutional quality. We document that, in response to exogenous improvements in the quality of their home-country institutions, MNCs rebalance their reporting strategies by clustering earnings management in subsidiaries from countries with more lenient regulations. Taken together, our findings yield important insights on the drivers of earnings management location within the firm and highlight the need for better cross-country coordination in regulatory design.