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The analysis of local currency bond market development is of particular interest to both policymakers and investors. Countries that have less developed local currency bond markets and rely heavily on foreign currency bonds are more likely to suffer from a currency mismatch and are hence more susceptible to currency crises [Krugman (1999), Jeanne and Zettelmeyer (2002), Schneider and Tornell (2004), Aghion, Bacchetta and Banerjee (2004), Goldstein and Turner (2004)].

The prices of fixed income assets depend on three components (Litterman and Iben [1988]): the risk free term structure of interest rates, embedded options values and credit risk. Optimally allocating portfolios in fixed income markets demands a detailed analysis of each of these components.

The financial market turmoil that has been under way since the Summer of 2007 hit the core of the global financial system, the inter-bank market for liquidity. This has manifested itself through episodes of widening spreads on inter-bank interest rates (vs. policy rates), together with evidence of plummeting volumes in inter-bank lending transactions. As turmoil turned into a full blown crisis in the Fall of 2008, inter-bank transactions were widely reported as frozen, as bid-offer spreads widened dramatically, and interest rates peaked on term borrowing beyond overnight transactions.

The extent to which individual stock prices move independently varies both across countries and over time. Morck et al. (2000) show that individual stock prices rise and fall concurrently more than in lower income economies in the mid 1990s. Campbell et al. (2001) and Morck et al. (2000) find a long-term rise in firm-specific variation in US stock returns, and a consequent decline in stock price comovement in that country.

Obesity could well become the most common health problem of the 21st century (Palou et al., 2000). Obesity is a disease resulting from the over storage of fat in the body. It is a problem concerning the balance of energy. An imbalance between energy input and energy consumption causes an increase in the body fat rate (Palou et al., 2000). It is known that the prevalence of obesity in adults and children has been increasing significantly around the world (Weinstock et al., 1998). In this century, obesity has been seen especially in industrial countries (Leonhardt et al., 1999). The over-consumption of delicious, high-calorie food and decrease in physical activity play major roles in increasing the prevalence of obesity in industrial countries (Campfield et al., 1996; Hill & Peters, 1998). The cost of treatment of obesity and obesity-related diseases is significant in general health expenditures in the United States (Bray, 1998).

While episodes of severe hunger such as famines receive considerable press coverage and attract much public attention, chronic hunger and malnutrition is considerably more prevalent in developing countries. It is estimated that at least 12 million low-birth-weight births occur per year and that around 162 million pre-school children and almost a billion people of all ages are malnourished.

A number of empirical studies have identified an important role of banks for real economic activity. Samolyk (1994) examines the relationship between banking conditions and economic performance at the U.S. state level and shows how regional banking conditions can affect local economic activity by impacting on a region's ability to fund local investments. Peek and Rosengren (2000) focus on real estate lending of Japanese banks in U.S. states following the Japanese banking crisis.

The growth accounting literature attribute to differences in aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) as the main source of the large variation on income across countries. There is a growing literature that emphasizes the importance of factor reallocation for TFP and output growth (see-Olley and Pakes (1996), Foster et al. (2006),Griliches and Regev (2006), Bartelsman et al. (2004), Aghion and Howitt (2006)).

Most people are familiar with vitamin D’s role in preventing rickets in children and in helping the body absorb calcium from the diet. Recently, research has shown that vitamin D is important in protecting the body from a wide range of diseases. Disorders linked with vitamin D deficiency include stroke, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, several forms of cancer, some autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, depression and schizophrenia.

In the latest years larger banks are steadily increasing their market share in credit risk transfer activities credit derivatives and loan sales as extensively documented by ECB (2004), BIS (2005), Minton et al. (2007) and Duffie (2007), among others. When transferring credit risk for risk management purposes, banks reduce their stake in the return from lending, impairing their incentives to monitor loans. If monitoring is important for bank credit, then credit risk transfer (CRT, hereafter) may reduce the value of intermediation and increase bank instability.

The recent financial crisis has led the US Federal Reserve to set the policy rate close to its zero lower bound. It further introduced several lending facilities and direct asset purchases, which eased access to reserves in a way that led to a doubling of its balance sheet after September 2008. These policies demonstrate that there are more instruments available for central banks than the pre-crisis view on monetary policy has suggested by its focus on pure interest rate policy. In contrast to the latter view, central banks usually do not accommodate money demand in an unrestricted way.

In addition to idiosyncratic factors, the likelihood of firms to survive or to fail in a competitive environment is largely governed by macroeconomic risks, with estimates of their impact on the variation of business activities ranging from 25% (Sharpe, 1981) to 75% (Schankerman, 2002). In this paper we use data on 20 administrative regions over the period 1985-2002 to empirically assess the nature and properties of the nexus between business failures and macroeconomic shocks in Italy.

Prior research provides conflicting results about whether performance (e.g., absolute returns, alpha, and Sharpe ratio) decreases as hedge fund size increases. Amman and Moerth (2005, 2008) find that performance decreases as hedge fund size increases; Edwards and Caglayan (2001), among others, find the opposite result; and Gregoriou and Rouah (2003), among others, find no relationship between hedge fund performance and fund size.

There is a renewed interest in policy and academic circles about the optimal level of foreign reserves sovereign countries should hold. This recent interest follows the rapid rise in international reserves held by developing countries. In 2005, for example, reserve accumulation amounted to 20% of GDP in lowand middle income countries; whereas this number was close to 5% in high-income countries. This practice has raised interesting questions in the literature regarding the cost and benefits of reserve accumulation.

Debt is a major source of external financing for large European firms. In 2007, corporate bonds and syndicated loans made up 94% of all public funds raised in the European capital markets, while public equity issuance accounted for only 6%. In recent years, developments in the corporate bond market have attracted considerable attention, particularly in the light of the market’s spectacular development in the aftermath of the introduction of the euro.