Showing papers on "Financial risk published in 2004"

Extreme Value Dependence in Financial Markets: Diagnostics, Models, and Financial Implications

Abstract: This article presents a general framework for identifying and modeling the joint-tail distribution based on multivariate extreme value theories. We argue that the multivariate approach is the most efficient and effective way to study extreme events such as systemic risk and crisis. We show, using returns on five major stock indices, that the use of traditional dependence measures could lead to inaccurate portfolio risk assessment. We explain how the framework proposed here could be exploited in a number of finance applications such as portfolio selection, risk management, Sharpe ratio targeting, hedging, option valuation, and credit risk analysis.

Backtesting Value-at-Risk: A Duration-Based Approach

Abstract: Financial risk model evaluation or backtesting is a key part of the internal model’s approach to market risk management as laid out by the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision. However, existing backtesting methods have relatively low power in realistic small sample settings. Our contribution is the exploration of new tools for backtesting based on the duration of days between the violations of the Value-at-Risk. Our Monte Carlo results show that in realistic situations, the new duration-based tests have considerably better power properties than the previously suggested tests.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Risk

Abstract: While studies have called the performance of socially responsible investments competitive, many investors do not choose to invest their assets in a socially responsible fashion. Part of this reluctance may relate to reduced diversification possibilities and the risk effects of application of ethical screens to portfolios. This investigation of a sample of Canadian stocks challenges the popular opinion that socially responsible investments are more volatile than conventional portfolios. Judged by two different methodologies, socially responsible companies tend to show less diversifiable risk in their stock behavior than non-socially responsible companies. These findings seem to support social investors? view that the adoption of corporate social responsibility codes of conduct can help diminish the overall business risk of a company, and even improve its long-term risk-adjusted performance.

Bank Consolidation, Internationalization, and Conglomeration: Trends and Implications for Financial Risk

Abstract: This paper documents trends in bank activity, consolidation, internationalization, and financial firm conglomeration with data on more than 100 countries, and explores the extent to which financial firm risk and systemic risk potential in banking are related to consolidation and conglomeration. The relationship between consolidation, conglomeration and financial risk is documented using financial data on the largest 500 financial firms worldwide and on large banks in about 90 countries. We find that (a) large conglomerate firms did not exhibit levels of risk-taking lower than smaller and specialized firms in 1995, while they exhibited higher levels of risk-taking in 2000; (b) highly concentrated banking systems exhibited levels of systemic risk potential higher than less concentrated systems during the 1993–2000 period, and this relationship has strengthened during the 1997–2000 period. We outline research directions aimed at explaining why bank consolidation and conglomeration may not necessarily yield either safer financial firms or more resilient banking systems.

The impact of risk regulation on price dynamics

Abstract: Most financial risk regulations assume that asset returns are exogenous, where risk is estimated from historical data. This assumption fails to take into account the feedback effect of trading decisions on prices. We investigate the consequences of risk constrained trading by means of simulations of a general equilibrium model with a value-at-risk constraint and compare the results to the case when risk constraints are not present. Prices are lower on average in the presence of risk regulation, while volatility is higher. Risk regulation may have the perverse effect of exacerbating price fluctuations.

Audit Firm Portfolio Management Decisions

Abstract: We examine client acceptance and client continuance decisions of a large audit firm to provide empirical evidence on the extent and nature of risk avoidance that the firm uses to purposefully manage its client portfolio. Our results support several key new inferences regarding audit firm portfolio management decisions. First, the results show that this firm is shedding the riskier clients in its portfolio, consistent with the risk avoidance theory of audit firm portfolio management. Second, the results show that the firm's newly accepted clients are less risky than its continuing clients. Although results of both the client continuance and client acceptance decisions imply a less risky portfolio emerging over time, there are greater differences in risk between continuing and discontinued clients than between continuing and newly accepted clients. Third, we find that audit risk factors are more important in audit firm portfolio management decisions than are financial risk factors. Finally, we find no evidence that audit pricing affects the client acceptance and continuance decisions of this firm, controlling for risk and other client characteristics.

Repoliticizing Financial Risk

Abstract: This article aims to repoliticize modern financial risk management by offering a genealogical reading of its contested religious and cultural history. While identifying, calculating, and selling risk is at the heart of the modern financial markets, the normative commitments of modern financial risk management remain both hidden from view and politically unquestioned. The article argues that the commercialization of risk in finance should not be understood as a reaction to objectively existing danger, but as a profitable cultural process that rests upon gendered constructions of danger and security. The article examines the role of risk in the recent proposals for a new Capital Accord by the Basle Committee for Banking Supervision, and argues that the financial industry is reluctant to accept domains of incalculability in the new Accord.

Managing financial risk in planning under uncertainty

Abstract: A methodology is presented to include financial risk management in the framework of two-stage stochastic programming for planning under uncertainty. A known probabilistic definition of financial risk is adapted to be used in this framework and its relation to downside risk is analyzed. Using these definitions, new two-stage stochastic programming models that manage financial risk are presented. Computational issues related to these models are also discussed. © 2004 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 50: 963–989, 2004

Optimal investment choices post-retirement in a defined contribution pension scheme

Abstract: In defined contribution pension schemes, the financial risk is borne by the member. Financial risk occurs both during the accumulation phase (investment risk) and at retirement, when the annuity is bought (annuity risk). The annuity risk faced by the member can be reduced through the “income drawdown option”: the retiree is allowed to choose when to convert the final capital into pension within a certain period of time after retirement. In some countries, there is a limiting age when annuitization becomes compulsory (in UK this age is 75). In the interim, the member can withdraw periodic amounts of money to provide for daily life, within certain limits imposed by the scheme’s rules (or by law). In this paper, we investigate the income drawdown option and define a stochastic optimal control problem, looking for optimal investment strategies to be adopted after retirement, when allowing for periodic fixed withdrawals from the fund. The risk attitude of the member is also considered, by changing a parameter in the disutility function chosen. We find that there is a natural target level of the fund, interpretable as a safety level, which can never be exceeded when optimal control is used. Numerical examples are presented in order to analyse various indices — relevant to the pensioner — when the optimal investment allocation is adopted. These indices include, for example, the risk of outliving the assets before annuitization occurs (risk of ruin), the average time of ruin, the probability of reaching a certain pension target (that is greater than or equal to the pension that the member could buy immediately on retirement), the final outcome that can be reached (distribution of annuity that can be bought at limit age), and how the risk attitude of the member affects the key performance measures mentioned above.

Health financing for poor people : resource mobilization and risk sharing

Abstract: Most community financing schemes have evolved in the context of severe economic constraints, political instability, and lack of good governance. Usually government taxation capacity is weak, formal mechanisms of social protection for vulnerable populations absent, and government oversight of the informal health sector lacking. In this context of extreme public sector failure, community involvement in the financing of health care provides a critical albeit insufficient first step in the long march towards improved access to health care by the poor and social protection against the cost of illness. Health Financing for Poor People stresses that community financing schemes are no panacea for the problems that low-income countries face in resource mobilization. They should be regarded as a complement to - not as a substitute for - strong government involvement in health care financing and risk management related to the cost of illness. Based on an extensive survey of the literature, the main strengths of community financing schemes are the extent of outreach penetration achieved through community participation, their contribution to financial protection against illness, and increase in access to health care by low-income rural and informal sector workers. Their main weaknesses are the low volume of revenues that can be mobilized from poor communities, the frequent exclusion of the very poorest from participation in such schemes without some form of subsidy, the small size of the risk pool, the limited management capacity that exists in rural and low-income contexts, and their isolation from the more comprehensive benefits that are often available through more formal health financing mechanisms and provider networks. The authors conclude by proposing concrete public policy measures that governments can introduce to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of community involvement in health care financing.

Estimation Risk in Financial Risk Management

Abstract: Value-at-risk (VAR) is increasingly used in portfolio risk measurement, risk capital allocation and performance attribution. Financial risk managers are therefore rightfully concerned with the precision of typical VAR techniques. The purpose of this paper is to assess the precision of common dynamic models and to quantify the magnitude of the estimation error by constructing confidence intervals around the point VAR and expected shortfall (ES) forecasts. A key challenge in constructing proper confidence intervals arises from the conditional variance dynamics that are typically found in speculative returns. Our paper suggests a resampling technique that takes into account parameter estimation error in dynamic models of portfolio variance.

The myth of the risk-tolerant entrepreneur:

Abstract: Entrepreneurs have long been assumed to be more risk-tolerant than the general population. In this article, we analyze the financial risk propensity of business founders using a unique, representat...

Optimal derivatives design under dynamic risk measures

Abstract: We develop a methodology to optimally design a financial issue to hedge non-tradable risk on financial markets. Economic agents assess their risk using monetary risk measure. The inf-convolution of convex risk measures is the key transformation in solving this optimization problem. When agents' risk measures only di#er from a risk aversion coe#cient, the optimal risk transfer is amazingly equal to a proportion of the initial risk.

Method for minimizing financial risk for wireless services

Abstract: A method and system for managing financial risk through the use of postpaid processing during use of wireless services is presented within the scope of the following invention. The present invention uses credit card authorization to pre-reserve credit card funds for wireless services in excess of planned usage. Authorizations eliminate the credit risk associated with overages and payment timing, and also maintain a customer experience identical to postpaid processing. The authorizations are invisible to the customer and no charge is brought to a customer's credit card until the monthly bill is settled. Separating the authorization and settlement stages of retail wireless payment processing allows the branded wireless provider to avoid inherent areas of credit risk during the tenure of a customer's wireless service, while maintaining a familiar customer experience.

Investigating the Role of Systematic and Firm-Specific Factors in Default Risk: Lessons from Empirically Evaluating Credit Risk Models

Abstract: This paper proposes and empirically investigates a family of credit risk models driven by a two-factor structure for the short-interest rate and an additional third factor for firm-specific distress, using the reduced-form framework of Duffie and Singleton (1999). The set of firm-specific distress factors analyzed in the study include leverage, book-to-market, profitability, equity-volatility, and distance-to-default. Our estimation approach and performance yardsticks show that interest rate risk is of first-order importance for explaining variations in single-name defaultable coupon bond yields and credit spreads. When applied to low-grade bonds, a credit risk model that takes leverage into consideration reduces absolute yield mispricing by as much as 30% relative to a competing model that ignores leverage. None of the distress factors improve performance for high-grade bonds. A strategy relying on traded Treasury instruments is surprisingly effective in dynamically hedging credit exposures for firms in our sample.

An Empirical Assessment of Country Risk Ratings and Associated Models

Abstract: . Country risk has become a topic of major concern for the international financial community over the last two decades. The importance of country ratings is underscored by the existence of several major country risk rating agencies, namely the Economist Intelligence Unit, Euromoney, Institutional Investor, International Country Risk Guide, Moody’s, Political Risk Services, and Standard and Poor’s. These risk rating agencies employ different methods to determine country risk ratings, combining a range of qualitative and quantitative information regarding alternative measures of economic, financial and political risk into associated composite risk ratings. However, the accuracy of any risk rating agency with regard to any or all of these measures is open to question. For this reason, it is necessary to review the literature relating to empirical country risk models according to established statistical and econometric criteria used in estimation, evaluation and forecasting. Such an evaluation permits a critical assessment of the relevance and practicality of the country risk literature. The paper also provides an international comparison of risk ratings for twelve countries from six geographic regions. These ratings are compiled by the International Country Risk Guide, which is the only rating agency to provide detailed and consistent monthly data over an extended period for a large number of countries. The time series data permit a comparative assessment of the international country risk ratings, and highlight the importance of economic, financial and political risk ratings as components of a composite risk rating.

Country Risk Ratings of Small Island Tourism Economies

Abstract: Over the last twenty years, there has been a growing fascination within public and academic circles about the livelihood of islands with small populations and territory which are present in each of the world's great oceans. The Small Island Tourism Economies analysed in this paper vary profoundly in their size, land area, and location. Moreover, they have depended heavily on financial aid from their former colonists for infrastructure development, which has declined dramatically since the collapse of Communism. These economies also differ in their narrow natural resource bases on land and in water, in their prospects for self reliance in economic development, and their overwhelming reliance on tourism as a source of exports. These economies are developing countries which need a consistent inflow of foreign direct investment to maintain economic growth. Such sovereign island economies differ in the extent to which they are home to a multitude of ethnic diversity, political systems, historical experience, economic and environmental vulnerability, ecological fragility, the types of risks facing private investors, and in the extent to which they are perceived as, or perceive themselves to be, insular and peripheral. In spite of the vast diversity as well as similarities, researchers are fascinated by the world of small island economies, and are intrigued by their unique features which cannot be addressed through a generalised set of rules. This paper analyses the geographical, historical, economic, tourism-oriented and institutional characteristics, as well as vulnerability to changes in the international economic, financial and political climates, of twenty Small Island Tourism Economies. The snapshot images provide a comparative assessment of the international country risk ratings, and highlight the importance of economic, financial and political risk ratings as components of a composite risk rating for Small Island Tourism Economies.

Environmental and Biophysical Factors Associated with Financial Risk Tolerance

Abstract: The effects of environmental and biopsychosocial factors on financial risk tolerance is analyzed. The research is premised on Irwin’s (1993) risk-taking behavioral model. Findings from an OLS regression, using a sample of faculty and staff from two universities (N = 406), indicate that education, marital status, net worth, financial knowledge, and household income, as environmental factors, are related to financial risk tolerance. A significant biopsychosocial factor associated with financial risk tolerance is self-esteem. Findings from this study confirm Irwin’s recommendation that further research should take into account both environmental and biopsychosocial factors when attempting to explain financial risk-tolerance attitudes.

Principles of financial engineering

Abstract: Three new chapters, numerous additions to existing chapters, and an expanded collection of questions and exercises make this third edition of Principles of Financial Engineering essential reading. Between defining swaps on its first page and presenting a case study on its last, Robert Kosowski and Salih Neftci's introduction to financial engineering shows readers how to create financial assets in static and dynamic environments. Poised among intuition, actual events, and financial mathematics, this book can be used to solve problems in risk management, taxation, regulation, and above all, pricing. * The Third Edition presents three new chapters on financial engineering in commodity markets, financial engineering applications in hedge fund strategies, correlation swaps, structural models of default, capital structure arbitrage, contingent convertibles and how to incorporate counterparty risk into derivatives pricing, among other topics. * Additions, clarifications, and illustrations throughout the volume show these instruments at work instead of explaining how they should act * The solutions manual enhances the text by presenting additional cases and solutions to exercises

Projection Bias and Financial Risk Tolerance

Abstract: Behavioral finance theories explain "why" individuals exhibit behaviors that do not maximize expected utility. This study explores how projection bias, as explained by regret theory, may shape financial risk tolerance attitudes. The results suggest that gender, income, and stock market price changes, as measured by the NASDAQ, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Standard & Poor's 500 indexes, help explain risk attitudes. Risk tolerance appears to be an elastic and changeable attitude. This research expands on the work of Shefrin [2000], who reported that recent stock market price changes exert a strong influence on risk tolerance attitudes and behaviors.

Reducing the Risk at Small Community Banks: Is it Size or Geographic Diversification that Matters?*

Abstract: Most community banks face relatively high levels of diversifiable credit risk because they have relatively few loan customers (idiosyncratic risk) and are not geographically diversified (local market risk). We simulate mergers among community banks to quantify the relative contributions of idiosyncratic risk and local market risk to the default risk assumed by community banks. We find that the greatest risk-reduction benefits are achieved by increasing a community bank’s size, regardless of where the expansion takes place. We interpret this result as evidence that idiosyncratic risk dominates local market risk, especially at rural banks. Community banks face enormous pressure to grow, yet the pressure to geographically diversify is limited. As a consequence, larger community banks are likely to replace smaller community banks, but their focus on relationship lending will not disappear.

Does investing in technology-based firms involve higher risk? An exploratory study of the performance of technology and non-technology investments by business angels

Abstract: There is a widespread concern in both the UK and in the European Union that technology-based firms encounter difficulties in raising venture capital at their start-up and early growth stages. This, in turn, reflects the perception amongst investors that investments in technology-based firms involve greater uncertainty (in terms of market and technology) and hence higher risks. This paper explores this contention by means of an examination of the performance of investments made by business angels (informal investors) in technology and non-technology firms. Based on the analysis of deal-specific information, the authors demonstrate that the overall returns profiles of the two types of investments are not significantly different. This may be because business angels are better able than venture capital fund executives to manage the risks involved in investing in technology-based firms on account of their industrial and entrepreneurial backgrounds. Alternatively, it may reflect the fact that the risks involved in investing in technology-based firms have been overstated.

How do Investors Judge the Risk of Financial Items

Abstract: This paper proposes and tests a new risk model that explains how investors perceive financial risks. The model combines conventional decision theory variables - probabilities and outcomes - with variables from psychology research by Slovic (1987). The latter includes variables such as the extent to which a risky item is new, causes worry, and is controllable. To test our model, we conduct two studies in which financial statement users judge the risk of a broad range of financial items. Our results indicate that both decision theory and Slovic variables are important in explaining investors' risk judgments. Further, we demonstrate that loss outcome information contained in mandated risk disclosures not only directly influences investors' risk judgments but also indirectly affects such judgments via its effect on select Slovic variables. These results provide new theoretical insights that should be useful to accounting and psychology researchers studying how people judge risk. Our results also imply that to fully understand the effects of current and future accounting risk disclosures, managers and regulators must consider the effects of these disclosures on decision theory and Slovic variables.

Method and system for financial advising

Abstract: A method of providing financial advice to a client that provides sufficient confidence that their goals will be achieved or exceeded but that avoids excessive sacrifice to the client's current or future lifestyle and avoids investment. risk that is not needed to provide sufficient confidence, of the,goals a client personally values. The method comprises obtaining typical client background information, as well as a list of investment goals, and ideal and acceptable values in dollar amounts and timing for each goal. A recommendation is then created using the portfolio value, and the client goal preferences and the ideal and acceptable values of goals, by simulating models of the relevant capital markets and investing exclusively in passive investment alternatives to avoid the risk of potential material underperformance of active investments under the premise of avoiding investment risk that is not needed to confidently buy the client the goals they personally value.

How efficient is naive portfolio diversification? an educational note

Abstract: Standard textbooks of Investment/Financial Management teach that although portfolio diversification can help reduce investment risk without sacrificing the expected rate of return, the benefit of diversification is exhausted with a portfolio size of 10–15. Since by then, most of the diversifiable risk is eliminated, leaving only the portion of systematic risk. How valid is this “common” knowledge? What is the exact value of “most” in the above statement? This paper examines the issue on naive (equal weight) diversification and analytically shows that for an infinite population of stocks, a portfolio size of 20 is required to eliminate 95% of the diversifiable risk on average. However, an addition of 80 stocks (i.e., a size of 100) is required to eliminate an extra 4% (i.e., 99% total) of diversifiable risk. This result depends neither on the investment horizons, sampling periods nor the markets involved.

Neighborhood Externality Risk and the Homeownership Status of Properties

Abstract: In contrast to corporate and institutional investors, single owner-occupiers cannot adequately diversify housing investment risk. Consequently, homeownership should be relatively less likely in places with higher housing investment risk. Using the American Housing Survey, it is documented that neighborhood externality risk, a major component of housing investment risk, substantially reduces the probability that a housing unit is owner-occupied, even when controlling for housing type and numerous location and household specific characteristics. The effects are quantitatively meaningful and change-in-change estimates suggest that the effects are causal.

Risk Instability and the Pattern of Foreign Direct Investment in the Middle East and North Africa Region

Abstract: This paper demonstrates that instability associated with investment risk is critical in explaining the level of foreign direct investment for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, which generally have higher investment risk than developed countries. The empirical results support this hypothesis, whether either the standard deviation or the interquartile range is used as a measure of instability, in a dynamic panel model. The paper recommends a reorientation of policies toward those with a longer-term focus in order to help lower the degree of risk instability for MENA countries.