Do Islamic indices provide diversification to bitcoin? A time-varying copulas and value at risk application

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Elsevier in Pacific-Basin Finance Journal on 08/04/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pacfin.2020.101326 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.© 2020 The emergence of new asset classes offers avenues to international investment community however understanding relationship between any two assets in a single portfolio is important. We investigate the risk dependence between daily Bitcoin and major Islamic equity markets spanning over from July 2010 to March 2018. We start by examining long memory properties of Bitcoin and sampled Islamic indices and report significant results. The residuals from fractionally integrated models are then used in bivariate time invariant and time varying copulas to investigate dependence structure. Among all Islamic indices, DJIUK, DJIJP and DJICA exhibit time varying dependence with Bitcoin. In addition, we apply VaR, CoVaR and ΔCoVaR as risk measure to examine spillover between Bitcoin and Islamic equity markets. VaR of Bitcoin exceeds from VaR of Islamic indices and CoVaR of both Islamic and Bitcoin exceeds their respective VaR, suggesting presence of risk spillover between each other. Our results also report asymmetry between downside and upside ΔCoVaR suggesting implications for investors with different risk preferences. Finally, the diversification benefits indicate that Islamic equity market serves as an effective hedge in a portfolio along with Bitcoin.Accepted versio

Re-Mapping Credit Ratings

Rating agencies report ordinal ratings in discrete classes. We question the market’s implicit assumption that agencies define their classes on identical scales, e.g., that AAA by Standard & Poor’s is equivalent to Aaa by Moody’s. To this end, we develop a non-parametric method to estimate the relation between rating scales for pairs of raters. For every rating class of one rater this, scale relation identifies the extent to which it corresponds to any rating class of another rater, and hence enables a rating-class specific re-mapping of one agency’s ratings to another’s. Our method is based purely on ordinal co-ratings to obviate error-prone estimation of default probabilities and the disputable assumptions involved in treating ratings as metric data. It estimates all rating classes’ relations from a pair of raters jointly, and thus exploits the information content from ordinality. We find evidence against the presumption of identical scales for the three major rating agencies Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, provide the relations of their rating classes and illustrate the importance of correcting for scale relations in benchmarking

Re-Mapping Credit Ratings

Rating agencies report ordinal ratings in discrete classes. We question the market’s implicit assumption that agencies define their classes on identical scales, e.g., that AAA by Standard & Poor’s is equivalent to Aaa by Moody’s. To this end, we develop a non-parametric method to estimate the relation between rating scales for pairs of raters. For every rating class of one rater this, scale relation identifies the extent to which it corresponds to any rating class of another rater, and hence enables a rating-class specific re-mapping of one agency’s ratings to another’s. Our method is based purely on ordinal co-ratings to obviate error-prone estimation of default probabilities and the disputable assumptions involved in treating ratings as metric data. It estimates all rating classes’ relations from a pair of raters jointly, and thus exploits the information content from ordinality. We find evidence against the presumption of identical scales for the three major rating agencies Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, provide the relations of their rating classes and illustrate the importance of correcting for scale relations in benchmarking

The Cross-Section of Crypto-Currencies as Financial Assets: An Overview

Crypto-currencies have developed a vibrant market since bitcoin, the first crypto-currency, was created in 2009. We look at the properties of cryptocurrencies as financial assets in a broad cross-section. We discuss approaches of altcoins to generate value and their trading and information platforms. Then we investigate crypto-currencies as alternative investment assets, studying their returns and the co-movements of altcoin prices with bitcoin and against each other. We evaluate their addition to investors' portfolios and document they are indeed able to enhance the diversification of portfolios due to their little co-movements with established assets, as well as with each other. Furthermore, we evaluate pure portfolios of crypto-currencies: an equallyweighted one, a value-weighted one, and one based on the CRypto-currency IndeX (CRIX). The CRIX portfolio displays lower risk than any individual of the liquid crypto-currencies. We also document the changing characteristics of the crypto-currency market. Deepening liquidity is accompanied by a rise in market value, and a growing number of altcoins is contributing larger amounts to aggregate crypto-currency market capitalization

Vorschläge zur Steuerreform in Deutschland: Was bedeuten sie? Was kosten sie?

Tax reform in Germany is proposed by political parties as well as by specific research groups. The gross wage income distributions for different groups of taxpayers are used to find out the consequences of introducing alternative rules of taxation for the wage income tax revenues. The results are supplemented to gain an impression of the overall consequences of a tax reform for the public sector’s budget. It turns out that fundamental tax reform is possible without reducing overall tax revenues if all the tax expenditures are abolished.Tax reform, tax revenue simulation, wage income tax elasticity, tax expenditures

Steuerreform und Lohnsteueraufkomnmen in Deutschland � Simulation auf Basis der Lohnsteuerstatistik

The gross wage income distributions for different groups of taxpayers in 1998 are used to derive wage income distributions for 2001–2006. By applying alternative rules of taxation, revenues according to different tax rate structures are deduced. Introducing new tax rates in 2004 resp. in 2005 will reduce the average tax rates and – though somewhat less – the marginal tax rates on average. “Bracket creep” will remain a huge problem in Germany. Indexation of the tax rate structure is the solution of the problem.Steuerreform, Steuersimulation, Steuerprogression, Marginale Steuerbelastung, Indexierung

Ein Modell zur Simulation des Lohnsteueraufkommens in Deutschland

Die Bruttolohnschichtungen für die einzelnen Steuerklassen im Jahr 1995 werden anhand der Ergebnisse der volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnungen fortgeschrieben. Unter Anwendung des tatsächlichen und des geplanten Steuerrechts wird das Lohnsteueraufkommen prognostiziert und simuliert. Die Einführung der von der Bundesregierung präferierten Einkommensteuertarife würde die Durchschnittsbelastung der Löhne und Gehälter reduzieren, die Grenzsteuerbelastung der Lohnsteuerzahler im Durchschnitt würde aber nur kurzfristig verringert. The gross wage income distributions for different groups of taxpayers in 1995 are used to derive income distributions for 2000–2003. By applying alternative rules of taxation, revenues according to different tax rate structures are deduced. When introducing the tax rate structures proposed by the federal government, the average tax rate is reduced, but the marginal tax rates on average are lower only in the short run.Steuerprognose, Steuersimulation, Steuerprogression, Marginale Steuerbelastung