Understanding the behavior of asset prices is essential in evaluating investment decisions so that practitioners and academics have been investigating what assets are worth and whether asset prices are predictable. The degree of stock return predictability is a statistical concept and totally an empirical issue. In this study, we conduct an empirical application on the equity premium forecastability concept. We consider both macroeconomic and technical indicators in order to predict the equity risk premiums of selected thirteen stock markets including Belgium, Greece, Malaysia, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, Brazil, Hong-Kong, India, Russia, and South Africa. Incorporating information from all indicators including domestic and foreign macroeconomic indicators, oil price changes, and technical indicators provides in-sample fitting gains. Out-of-sample forecasting results show that the strategy of combining forecasts provides out-of-sample gains. Portfolio performance analyses suggests following the forecasts generated by the proposed models to obtain positive returns over the buy-and-hold strategy.

Uzun süreli genç işsizlik, beraberinde pek çok yapısal sorunu getirdiği ve beslediğinden dolayı son dönemde özellikle Avrupa Birliği ülkelerinde araştırmalara sıklıkla konu olmaktadır. Şüphesiz ki işsizlik süresi arttıkça hem bireyler hem de toplumlar için işsizliğin maliyeti de artmaktadır. Bu yüzden uzun süreli genç işsizliğine yönelik mücadele politikalarının geliştirilmesi büyük önem arz etmektedir.

Türkiye’de uzun süreli genç işsizliğiyle mücadele politikalarına yön vermeyi amaçlayan kitap, bu sorunun sosyo-ekonomik belirleyicilerini alan araştırmasıyla destekleyerek okuyucuya sunmaktadır.

The book “Money laundering phenomenon – foundations, trends, impact and governance in banking industry” explores foundation, models (methods) to measure money laundering, trends, auditing Anti-Money Laundering structures in banking industry, AML risk assessment, impact/effects of money laundering, governance, and regulatory point of view.

The book includes some models that have been used to measure the amount of money laundering, respectively the effect of money laundering in various macroeconomic variables such as economic growth, consumption, investment, government expenditure, export and import. Moreover, there are presented some trends that may dominate in the AML field for coming years.

The strengthening of international cooperation in the field of anti-money laundering have given power to international organisations to recommend mitigating measures, standards and principles and applying them in practise, this is why in the book a special chapter is dedicated to international bodies and organisations to fight money laundering phenomenon.

Due to high importance of the AML risk assessment, as a risk management mechanism framework, a specific chapter is dedicated to it.

A special attention is dedicated to the auditing of AML structures in banking and the role of audit in general to AML field.

Last, but not least, in the book a chapter is dedicated to determinants of informal economy, since money laundering and informal economy are interconnected and needs to be studied as one of the challenges for countries.

We believe our book contributes to current literature on money laundering phenomena and that it is important for bankers, policy makers, strategists, academics, and students.