Pricing of non-redundant derivatives in a complete market

We consider a complete financial market with primitive assets and derivatives on these primitive assets. Nevertheless, the derivative assets are non-redundant in the market, in the sense that the market is complete,only with their existence. In such a framework, we derive an equilibrium restriction on the admissible prices of derivative assets. The equilibrium condition imposes a well-ordering principle restricting the set of probability measures that qualify as candidate equivalent martingale measures. This restriction is preference free and applies whenever the utility functions belong to the general class of Von-Neumann Morgenstern functions. We provide numerical examples that show the applicability of the restriction for the computation of option prices.We are indebted to the editor Marti Subrahmanyam and two anonymous referees for very constructive comments. We have also benefitted from conversations with Nour Meddahi. We would like to thank seminar participants at Université de Montréal, Washington University, HEC Montréal, Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie, Institut Henri Poincaré, Trento Mathematical Finance Conference (1997), Aspet (FIQUAM) Conference (1998) as well as the participants at the Quantitative Methods of Finance Conference, Australia, 1997.This author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of INQUIRE-Europe.     

Using contractual incentives in district nursing in the English NHS: results from a qualitative study

Since 2008, health policy in England has been focusing increasingly on improving quality in healthcare services. To ensure quality improvements in community nursing, providers are required to meet several quality targets, including an incentive scheme known as Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN). This paper reports on a study of how financial incentives are used in district nursing, an area of care which is particularly difficult to measure and monitor.     

Pricing of the currency risk in the Canadian equity market

Based on a three-factor international capital asset pricing model, we examine whether the world market, the local market and the currency risks are priced in the Canadian equity market. The analysis presented in this paper is based on data collected from 2003 to 2010. As the dataset also includes the period of global financial crisis, we examine the issue of risk pricing in the full sample as well as in before and after global financial crisis periods. Unlike most existing studies, the empirical results presented in this paper are based on (i) the quasi maximum likelihood estimation (QMLE) based multivariate GARCH-in-Mean specification and (ii) the generalized method of moments (GMM) techniques. Our empirical analysis based on weekly data on 58 largest Canadian firms indicates that the currency as well as the local and the world market risks are priced in the Canadian equity market. This result holds for all exchange currency rates proxies and in all sample periods. We find that the price of the world market, the local market and the currency risks is time-varying and the Canadian equity market is partially segmented.     

中国金融市场信用风险模型研究与应用

文章运用中国金融市场和原银行信贷登记系统数据及人民银行组织的信用评级等数据资源,在金融工程理论和技术方法创新的基础上,借鉴国际信用风险模型中违约模式代表——KMV模型原理,实证建立由判别函数和违约强度共同构成的中国金融市场违约预警模型;借鉴国际信用风险模型中盯市模式代表——CreditMetrics模型原理,使用蒙特卡罗模拟方法实证建立中国金融市场信用组合计量模型;探索这两类模型在中国信贷市场、外汇市场、货币市场和债券市场风险管理实务中的应用;并在此基础上提出了政策性建议。     

金融全球化进程中金融风险的防范与化解(英文)

在全球金融化的进程中,金融活动在全球范围内得到扩展和深化,同时每个金融主体也面临着不同程度的风险,很多因素都可能加强金融风险,其中包括人为因素和系统因素。而包括中国在内的发展中国家在抵御可能的风险方面能力较弱,所以我们更加需要采取正确并积极的方式来抵御金融风险。     

金融市场的效率内涵及我国政策选择

本文从资金运用角度阐述了金融市场的效率内涵 ,并对金融市场的效率进行了分析和衡量 ,最后在分析我国金融市场效率现状的基础上 ,提出了一些提高我国金融市场效率的看法和建议。     

Determinants of financial covenants and pricing of debt in private debt contracts: the UK evidence

This paper presents details of financial covenants given by a sample drawn from the largest 200 non-financial quoted firms in the UK in private debt contracts and analyses these data to see whether there are relationships between the nature of the covenants given and firm characteristics. Data were obtained from 72 firms, of which 17 gave no financial covenants. Firm size was found to be the only significant factor influencing whether firms did or did not give covenants as well as the only factor which influenced the margin given on debt. Some types of covenants given were found to be different from those found in previous research. In particular, there is greater use of EBITDA as a base for both interest cover and gearing covenants. This shows the importance of cash flow based lending as opposed to asset based lending for general financing for large firms.     

金融全球化进程中金融风险的防范与化解

在全球金融化的进程中,金融活动在全球范围内得到扩展和深化,同时每个金融主体也面临着不同程度的风险,很多因素都可能加强金融风险,其中包括人为因素和系统因素.而包括中国在内的发展中国家在抵御可能的风险方面能力较弱,所以我们更加需要采取正确并积极的方式来抵御金融风险.     

The price of fear: Estimating the financial cost of bullying and harassment to the NHS in England

Using a spectrum of measures, this paper estimates some of the financial costs of bullying and harassment to the NHS in England. By means of specific impacts resulting from bullying and harassment to staff health, sickness absence costs to the employer, employee turnover, diminished productivity, sickness presenteeism, compensation, litigation and industrial relations costs, we conservatively estimate bullying and harassment to cost the taxpayer £2.281 billion per annum.     

Relationship between franking credits and the market risk premium: a comment

This paper examines two arguments presented in Gray and Hall (2006). First, that the generally used estimate of 0.06 for the market risk premium within the Officer version of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and the generally used estimate of 0.50 for the parameter ‘gamma’ within the Officer framework are jointly inconsistent with evidence concerning the market risk premium in the standard version of the CAPM. Second, that the first two of these parameter estimates are also jointly inconsistent with the observed cash dividend yield on the Australian market. To resolve these problems, Gray and Hall recommend setting gamma to zero. The present paper shows that the first argument does not account for the fact that imputation induces a reduction in the market risk premium as defined in the standard version of the CAPM. The present paper also shows that both arguments identify a problem that characterizes only parts of the Officer framework, and these parts are not generally used in Australia. Therefore, rather than suggesting that gamma should be zero, Gray and Hall's analysis identifies parts of the Officer framework that should be avoided.     

The rise in comovement across national stock markets: market integration or IT bubble?

A stylized fact in the portfolio diversification literature is that diversifying across countries is more effective than diversifying across industries in terms of risk reduction. But with the rise in comovement across national stock markets since the mid-1990s, this no longer appears to be true. We explore if this change is driven by global integration and therefore likely to be permanent, or if it is a temporary phenomenon associated with the recent stock market bubble. Our results point to the latter hypothesis. In the aftermath of the bubble, diversifying across countries may therefore still be effective in reducing portfolio risk.     

Computing the market price of volatility risk in the energy commodity markets

In this paper, we demonstrate the need for a negative market price of volatility risk to recover the difference between Black–Scholes [Black, F., Scholes, M., 1973. The pricing of options and corporate liabilities. Journal of Political Economy 81, 637–654]/Black [Black, F., 1976. Studies of stock price volatility changes. In: Proceedings of the 1976 Meetings of the Business and Economics Statistics Section, American Statistical Association, pp. 177–181] implied volatility and realized-term volatility. Initially, using quasi-Monte Carlo simulation, we demonstrate numerically that a negative market price of volatility risk is the key risk premium in explaining the disparity between risk-neutral and statistical volatility in both equity and commodity-energy markets. This is robust to multiple specifications that also incorporate jumps. Next, using futures and options data from natural gas, heating oil and crude oil contracts over a 10 year period, we estimate the volatility risk premium and demonstrate that the premium is negative and significant for all three commodities. Additionally, there appear distinct seasonality patterns for natural gas and heating oil, where winter/withdrawal months have higher volatility risk premiums. Computing such a negative market price of volatility risk highlights the importance of volatility risk in understanding priced volatility in these financial markets.     

Posterior analysis of mergers and acquisitions in the international financial market: A re-appraisal

Do mergers and acquisitions (M&A) improve the wealth status of investors, and if so, amidst persistence of volatility shocks? This paper tests these propositions by employing in the first step, a modified event study approach, and estimating a long-memory conditional volatility model, in the second step. The financial and policy implications of M&A are varied and contestable, yet, from an investor’s perspective, the long-term adjusted gain from M&A depends not only on the immediate growth of wealth, but also the fact that such a growth would accompany reduced rate of volatility persistence. Although in the beginning, a high persistence of volatility cannot be ruled out, its presence in the longer-run implies that the wealth gains from M&A are unstable, leading perhaps to a further collapse of both the merged/merger and acquired/acquiring firms. We estimate a long-memory Generalized Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model with a Markovian transition for a number of international firms, specifically in Asia, to show in the first place, whether volatility shocks display differential memory in the pre- and post-M&A periods and whether the asymmetric high persistence is in the aftermath of M&A. Our results point at a significant ‘non-zero’ and positive gain for investors following M&A, but this is combined with greater volatility persistence.     

Spillovers in risk of financial institutions

ABSTRACT

We analyse the total and directional spillovers across a set of financial institution systemic risk state variables: credit risk, real estate market risk, interest rate risk, interbank liquidity risk and overall market risk. We examine the response of the spillover levels, within the set of systemic risk state variables, to a number of events in the financial markets and to initiatives undertaken by the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. The relationship between the time-varying spillovers and policy-related events is analysed using a multiple structural break estimation procedure and looking at the temporary increases in the spillover indices. Our sample includes five European Union countries: core countries France and Germany, periphery countries Spain and Italy, and a reference country, the UK. We show that national stock markets and real estate markets have a leading role in shock transmission across selected state variables. However, the role of the other variables reverses over the course of the crisis. We document that the total and net spillover indices react strongly to the events relating to financial assistance packages in Europe.     

The pricing of exchange rate risk and stock market segmentation: The Canadian case

Empirical evidence by Eun and Resnick (1988), among others, has demonstrated the significance of exchange rate risk in the international asset allocation and they have noted that the risk is nondiversifiable. Yet, exchange rate risk was found by Jorion (1991) to be a risk factor that is not priced in the U.S. stock market. This study reexamines such counterintuitive results using data from the Toronto Stock Exchange. The evidence here weakly supports the pricing of the exchange rate risk. Further, the sample period in this study coincides with Jorion's to ensure that both studies examine the pricing of the exchange rate risk in the same global economic environment. The significant pricing of exchange rate risk in Canada and the insignificant pricing in the U.S. imply the possibility of market segmentation.     

Two sides of the same coin: Green Taxonomy alignment versus transition risk in financial portfolios

We develop the first top-down method to estimate the greenness of financial portfolios, in terms of alignment to the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities. We also develop a method to estimate, at the same time, the portfolio exposure to climate transition risk. We provide sector-level, standardized and transparent coefficients for both estimates, based on definitions of greenness and transition risk that are applicable across countries. We analyse the portfolios of Euro Area investors in 2022, based on the confidential Securities Holdings Statistics of the European Central Bank. We find that, overall, the greenness of Euro Area investors’ portfolios is lower than their exposure to transition risk (2.8% vs. 11.7%).Across financial institutions, we estimate greenness and exposure to transition risk, respectively, at 3.2% and 12% for investment funds, at 0.8% and 5% for banks and at 4.8% and 15.1% for insurers. Our analysis also shows that investors with large amounts invested in green activities can have at the same time large exposures to transition risk.     

21st century scandals: towards a risk approach to financial reporting scandals

Financial reporting scandals in the 21^st century have been followed by many changes in the regulatory framework of financial reporting. While it is natural to ask for research evidence on the effectiveness of these changes in preventing new scandals, we discuss some of the difficulties in conducting this type of research as well as limitations of commonly used approaches. We argue as the central point of this paper that both research and regulation should be based on an explicit acceptance of a permanent risk of financial reporting failure, rather than working on the assumption that this risk can and should be ever further reduced. Acceptance of this point of view can turn what is currently a scattering of unconnected research efforts into a coherent research agenda with potentially high relevance. Facing the existence of permanent financial reporting risk leads to a series of interconnected questions including the measurement of this risk, both actual and as perceived by various stakeholder groups, communication and education concerning these risks, and mechanisms to share or transfer these risks.