Are celebrity endorsements worthwhile investments in advertising? To answer this question, we analyze a unique sample of 101 announcements made between 1996 and 2008 by firms listed in the USA. Internet is the main medium of communication for these announcements. We employ event study methodology and document statistically insignificant abnormal returns around the announcement dates. This finding is consistent with the notion that the incremental benefits from celebrity endorsements closely match the incremental costs due to such contracts. Further, we investigate if the announcement date return depends on a number of characteristics that are often used in the endorsement literature. As a result, we find that endorsements of technology industry products coincide with significant positive abnormal returns around the announcement dates. Finally, we find weak support for the match-up hypothesis between celebrities and endorsed products.

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The global financial crisis that started in mid‐2007 illustrates the relevance of systemic risk. One key driver of the systemic instability that materialised in the crisis was the elevated level of stress in large banks. We use EVT to analyse the effect of size on banks’ univariate and systemic risk across ten countries as well as across the EU. Our findings show that size has little impact on banks’ univariate risk (as measured by VaR), but that large banks have significantly higher systemic risk. Furthermore, systemic risk has significantly increased for banks of all sizes since the beginning of the crisis.

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