Stock exchanges and regional competitiveness: the case of small German exchanges

The analysis of financial centers focuses mainly on the competition between and changing roles of the major places. In the European context thus usually London, Paris, Frankfurt/Main and other national financial centers have become objects of investigation. The findings show that the recent reorganisation of financial centers in Europe under the conditions of widespread use of ICT with the possibility of remote access to exchanges, the development of innovative products on financial markets, and the advent of a single currency affects structures, organisation and specialization of the main actors within financial centers, i.e. banks and exchanges. The planned but failed merger between London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse AG in Frankfurt/Main in 2000 has probably been one of the publicly most noticed aspects of this development. The proposed paper wants to put a focus on less prominent features of current restructuring, namely the roles and strategies of minor German exchanges. The main idea is, that - although financial services are characterized by a spread of "de-spatialized" forms of service production-, strategies of regional development based (at least partly) on endogenous resources can be supported by regional financial institutions. The argument will be presented in three steps: At first the importance of a regional exchange for regional development has to be discussed on a theoretical base. This part will draw upon notions and considerations of the "glocalization" literature which stresses the ambivalent relationship between processes of globalization and disembedding on the one hand and re-interpretation of different forms of proximity (including spatial proximity) on the other hand. A second - also rather theoretical - part will consider the possible comparative advantages of minor exchanges in the context of the prevailing concentration processes. This section will therefore focus on possible strategies, which combine the access to highly liquid and innovative exchanges and the special regional knowledge available at regional institutions. The chances and risks of different strategies (alliances with strong national and/or international partners vs. "niche production") have to be discussed. In the third section the empirical findings of the analysis of different minor German exchanges situated in metropolitan regions (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich) will be presented and assessed according to the arguments developed in the preceeding parts. The contextualization not only in respect to the specific regional economic situation but also in respect to the history of the German decentralized system of exchanges and the main trends of restructuring of the "European exchange landscape" will be essential to this last part.

Trade-throughs in European cross-traded equities after transaction costs – empirical evidence for the EURO STOXX 50

This paper investigates the accuracy and heterogeneity of output growth and inflation forecasts during the current and the four preceding NBER-dated U.S. recessions. We generate forecasts from six different models of the U.S. economy and compare them to professional forecasts from the Federal Reserve’s Greenbook and the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). The model parameters and model forecasts are derived from historical data vintages so as to ensure comparability to historical forecasts by professionals. The mean model forecast comes surprisingly close to the mean SPF and Greenbook forecasts in terms of accuracy even though the models only make use of a small number of data series. Model forecasts compare particularly well to professional forecasts at a horizon of three to four quarters and during recoveries. The extent of forecast heterogeneity is similar for model and professional forecasts but varies substantially over time. Thus, forecast heterogeneity constitutes a potentially important source of economic fluctuations. While the particular reasons for diversity in professional forecasts are not observable, the diversity in model forecasts can be traced to different modeling assumptions, information sets and parameter estimates. JEL Classification: G14, G15, G2

Environmental analysis for application layer networks

Die zunehmende Vernetzung von Rechnern über das Internet lies die Vision von Application Layer Netzwerken aufkommen. Sie umfassen Overlay Netzwerke wie beispielsweise Peer-to-Peer Netzwerke und Grid Infrastrukturen unter Verwendung des TCP/IP Protokolls. Ihre gemeinsame Eigenschaft ist die redundante, verteilte Bereitstellung und der Zugang zu Daten-, Rechen- und Anwendungsdiensten, während sie die Heterogenität der Infrastruktur vor dem Nutzer verbergen. In dieser Arbeit werden die Anforderungen, die diese Netzwerke an ökonomische Allokationsmechanismen stellen, untersucht. Die Analyse erfolgt anhand eines Marktanalyseprozesses für einen zentralen Auktionsmechanismus und einen katallaktischen Markt. --Grid Computing

A theoretical and computational basis for CATNETS

The main content of this report is the identification and definition of market mechanisms for Application Layer Networks (ALNs). On basis of the structured Market Engineering process, the work comprises the identification of requirements which adequate market mechanisms for ALNs have to fulfill. Subsequently, two mechanisms for each, the centralized and the decentralized case are described in this document. These build the theoretical foundation for the work within the following two years of the CATNETS project. --Grid Computing

Online Brokerage: Transforming Markets from Professional to Retail Trading

In this paper, we discuss different concepts for transforming professional trading mechanisms for the increasing market of private investors. Different perspectives of this fundamental change in capital markets are discussed. The driver of these changes is IT: technological progress provides new ways for private investors to participate actively in the capital markets in order to take advantage – and risk – in the area, where traditionally only professionals could realize their chances. Starting from these observations, one of the most important success factors for Online-brokers is discussed, namely that of the integration of the various phases within the “market transaction process“. Some already existing concepts in this area – going along with new forms of intermediation – are evaluated on the basis of the requirements of the different groups mentioned above. Beyond that, the integration level within the market processes serves as a clear framework for further development of IT support of trading activities in Onlinebrokerage. The concept of an Internet based electronic trading system is presented as a promising way to transform professional trading activities to the needs of private investors in the future

Asset Management in Volatile Markets

The 27th SUERF Colloquium in Munich in June 2008: New Trends in Asset Management: Exploring the Implications was already topical in the Summer of 2008. The subsequent dramatic events in the Autumn of 2008 made the presentations in Munich even more relevant to investors and bankers that want to understand what happens in their investment universe. In the present SUERF Study, we have collected a sample of outstanding colloquium contributions under the fitting headline: Asset Management in Volatile Markets.derivatives, financial innovation, asset management, finance-growth-nexus; Relative Value Strategy, Pair Trading, Slippage, Implementation Shortfall, Asset Management, Fin4Cast