Dpto. Economía y Empresa

This paper analyzes the performance of various asset classes traded in the Spanish Capital Market. We compare the relative behavior of stock and corporate bond market indices, risk factors, and option-based expected market risk premia of the IBEX-35 at alternative horizons. We finally discuss the spillover volatility connections between the stock market portfolio, the general index of corporate bonds, the long-term government bond, and risk-neutral volatility and skewness. The stock market index is a net sender of volatility to the rest of asset classes, especially during the Great Recession and the Eurozone debt crises. The government bond is a net sender of volatility to corporate bonds and risk-neutral volatility and skewness. In fact, during stressed periods, the returns of the government bond have a positive exposure to the market stock return, which suggests that the Spanish long-term bond is a risky asset rather than being a hedging asset. This fact, together with the strong counter-cyclical behavior of the expected market risk premium at any horizon, suggests that the Spanish corporations are badly affected during recessions with a negative impact on investment and output growth. It is not surprising how rapidly the Spanish economy deteriorates at the beginning of recessions. Note that the ultimate objective is to learn about the Spanish real economy through the lens of financial markets

This analysis addressed the potential systemic effects of guarantee requirements by central counterparties. Using data from the Spanish BME and German Eurex central clearing counterparties and controlling for tail risk and monetary and real activity variables, we found a significant, positive, and robust relationship between the guarantees required and the spillover or total connectedness effects among nine financial assets in the Spanish, United States, and German capital markets. Bad economic times also had a significant incremental effect on the relationship between guarantees and connectedness. These findings are robust across central clearing corporations and futures contracts in the IBEX 35, DAX 30, and EURO STOXX 50. In addition, an event study indicated that global spillover effects tend to increase before central counterparty institutions raise their guarantees. The implication of the findings is that European clearing institutions react to rather than cause bad economic times.

Macro-finance asset pricing models provide a rationale for connectedness dynamics between equity and Treasury risk-neutral volatilities. In this paper, we study the total and directional connectedness, in the sense of spillover effects, between risk-neutral volatilities from the equity and Treasurymarkets. In addition, we analyze the economic and monetary drivers of connectedness dynamics. Most of the time, but especially during bad economic times, we find significant net spillovers from Treasury to equity risk-neutral volatility. The spillover channel between risk-neutral volatilities arises mainly through the government fixed income market.

Institutional investors often have to decide which strategy to use across international business cycles. This is especially important during economic and financial crises. The exogenous nature of the outbreak of the dramatic COVID-19 crisis represents a unique opportunity to understand the performance of risk factors during severe economic times across international stock markets. Even more important is to analyze how these factors behave across very different economic crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Recession. Although, the overall results show that the momentum and quality factors are the winners, with the value factor as the loser, this research also reports different responses of factors across crises and countries. The size, value, and defensive factors tend to perform worse during the health crisis relative to the Great Recession, while the momentum factor shows a poor performance during the financial crisis, but a positive one during the outbreak of COVID-19. The quality factor is an extraordinary defensive factor in both crises. Similarly, this paper reports heterogeneous responses of option-implied expected market risk premia across alternative stock market indices, and between the Great Recession and the COVID-19 crisis.

El principal objetivo de este estudio es analizar la influencia que el compromiso (engagement) y la experiencia del consumidor tienen en la creación de valor de marca (brand equity) para el comercio detallista a través de su relación con la notoriedad y la lealtad. Las relaciones entre las variables contribuyen a la creación de lealtad, lo que, generando valor de marca para el detallista. El trabajo contribuye al estudio del compromiso del cliente, considerado como un concepto relativamente nuevo en marketing (Farhat et al., 2020). Se analiza la influencia que el compromiso y la experiencia ejercen sobre la notoriedad y lealtad en la creación de valor de marca para el comercio detallista.

This research analyzes the causes of the quality premium, one of the most intriguing and successful investment strategies in equity markets. While previous research has argued that psychological biases explain the performance of the quality minus junk factor, our paper analyzes a leverage constraint explanation within a rational risk-based framework. The quality factor is multidimensional in nature, which suggests that a combination of risk, frictions, and behavioral biases is a reasonable explanation. Once we incorporate margin requirements and liquidity restrictions, we find that tighter conditions result in a higher intercept and a lower slope for the empirically implemented capital asset pricing model when using 10 quality-sorted portfolios. Our paper shows that, indeed, not only behavioral biases explain quality, but also market frictions account for its performance.

Since engagement is a relatively new concept in the field of marketing and is not usually included when studying brand equity, this paper aims to analyze what role engagement has in its relationship with the creation of value for luxury brands. A theoretical model was specified and tested by confirmatory factor analysis. Hypothesis have been tested running a structural equations model. Each hypothesis has resulted to be significant. The conclusions obtained from the analysis of the data allow us to describe the effects that occur between the variables, being important for their management so that managers of the luxury companies can increase the value of their brands.

Strong brand equity is important for any business. Although the concept of brand equity has been studied in various fields, its analysis has not been as extensive in the retail sector. On the other hand, the analysis of engagement is gaining more importance in recent times. Customer engagement is an increasingly relevant and researched topic. However, studies that relate this concept to retail trade are not common. The present work aims to analyze the effect of engagement on the different components of retail brand equity. The a priori model considers the previous research and the proposed hypotheses. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis is performed, based on the data obtained through a structured questionnaire with closed questions and a 5-point Likert-type response scale. The study sample consists of 623 respondents. This study involved a conceptual model that includes the brand equity dimensions (awareness, perceived quality, image, perceived value, and loyalty) to gain the research goal. The hypothesized causal model relates the variables that make up brand equity and the engagement influence on them. The empirical analysis results showed that customer engagement positively affects all the components of the brand equity retailer (except its image), mainly concerning retailer awareness, loyalty, and perceived quality. The authors concluded that retailer awareness, loyalty towards the retailer, and retailer perceived quality are influenced by engagement. Consequently, it would be necessary for the retailer manager to pay special attention to creating actions that contribute to customers' engagement in the different areas of interaction with them, both online and at the physical point of sale. For future studies, the geographic space should be expanded, considering different regions or even countries and observing possible differences in the behavior of the interviewees.

Durante la reciente campaña electoral, los diferentes candidatos presentaron las propuestas de gobierno recogidas en sus respectivos programas. Incluidas las económicas, fundamentales también para garantizar la buena marcha del país. Como cristianos, estamos llamados a no separar la fe de ninguna de las dimensiones que intervienen en nuestra vida, entre ellas, la economía. Solo así la buena noticia del Evangelio lo será también para esta actividad humana y nos ayudará a encontrar las claves de una vida más plena, que contribuya a la construcción aquí y ahora del Reino de Dios.