A partial internal model for longevity risk

This paper proposes a simple partial internal model for longevity risk within the Solvency 2 framework. The model is closely linked to the mechanisms associated with the so-called Danish longevity benchmark, where the underlying mortality intensity and the trend is estimated yearly based on mortality experience from the Danish life and pension insurance sector, and on current data from the entire Danish population. Within this model, we derive an estimate for the 99.5% percentile for longevity risk, which differs from the longevity stress of 20% from the standard model. The new stress explicitly reflects the risk associated with unexpected changes in the underlying population mortality intensity on a one-year horizon and with a 99.5% confidence level. In addition, the model contains a component, which quantifies the unsystematic longevity risk associated with a given insurance portfolio. This last component depends on the size of the specific portfolio.     

Mortality regimes and longevity risk in a life annuity portfolio

This paper explores the presence of changes of trends or jumps in French mortality from 1947 to 2007, and assesses their implications on the longevity risk management of a life annuity portfolio. We accomplish this by extending the Poisson log-bilinear regression developed by Brouhns et al. (2002) with a regime-switching model. Estimation results show that French mortality is characterized by two distinct regimes. One refers to a strong uncertainty state, which corresponds to the longevity conditions observed during the decade following World War II. The second regime is related to the low volatility of longevity improvements observed during the last 30 years. We use these results to analyze the impact of mortality regimes on the longevity risk management of a life annuity portfolio. Simulation results suggest that the changes of trends in the mortality process have some implications for longevity risk management.     

长寿风险的创新解决方案

长寿风险是指个人实际寿命高于预期寿命产生的财务风险.长寿风险给保险公司同时带来了新的挑战与机遇.近年来西方保险公司推出了各种应对长寿风险的创新解决方案,包括附保证变额年金、长期护理保险、反向抵押贷款和长寿风险证券化,对我国具有借鉴意义.本文从保险公司的新视角系统梳理了这四种创新方案,并对其优缺点和适用条件进行了比较分析...     

Cohort and value-based multi-country longevity risk management

ABSTRACT

Multi-country risk management of longevity risk provides new opportunities to hedge mortality and interest rate risks in guaranteed lifetime income streams. This requires consideration of both interest rate and mortality risks in multiple countries. For this purpose, we develop value-based longevity indexes for multiple cohorts in two different countries that take into account the major sources of risks impacting life insurance portfolios, mortality and interest rates. To construct the indexes we propose a cohort-based affine model for multi-country mortality and use an arbitrage-free multi-country Nelson–Siegel model for the dynamics of interest rates. Index-based longevity hedging strategies have the advantages of efficiency, liquidity and lower cost but introduce basis risk. Graphical risk metrics are a way to effectively capture the relationship between an insurer's portfolio and hedging strategies. We illustrate the effectiveness of using a value-based index for longevity risk management between two countries using graphical basis risk metrics. To show the impact of both interest rate and mortality risk we use Australia and the UK as domestic and foreign countries, and, to show the impact of mortality only, we use the male populations of the Netherlands and France with common interest rates and basis risk arising only from differences in mortality risks.     

Corporate risk management and firm value: evidence from the UK market

The paper evaluates the effect of corporate risk management activities on firm value, using a sample of large UK non-financial firms. Following recent changes in financial reporting standards, we are able to collect detailed information on risk management activities from audited financial reports. This enables us to gain a better understanding of risk management practices and to investigate value implications of different types of hedging. Overall 86.88% of the firms in the sample use derivatives to manage at least one type of price risk. The hedging premium is statistically and economically significant for foreign currency derivative users, while we provide weak evidence that interest rate hedging increases firm value. The extent of hedging and the hedging horizon have an impact on the hedging premium, whereas operational risk management activities do not significantly influence the market value of the firm.     

Inf-convolution of risk measures and optimal risk transfer

We develop a methodology for optimal design of financial instruments aimed to hedge some forms of risk that is not traded on financial markets. The idea is to minimize the risk of the issuer under the constraint imposed by a buyer who enters the transaction if and only if her risk level remains below a given threshold. Both agents have also the opportunity to invest all their residual wealth on financial markets, but with different access to financial investments. The problem is reduced to a unique inf-convolution problem involving a transformation of the initial risk measures.Received: December 2004, Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 60G35, 91B28, 91B30, 46N10JEL Classification: C61, D81, G13, G22     

稳步推进贷款转让市场健康发展

发展贷款转让市场对于推动商业银行经营战略转型、完善金融市场结构、化解金融系统风险具有重要意义。随着《贷款转让交易主协议》的发布和贷款转让交易平台的上线,我国规范化的贷款转让市场已正式起航。下一阶段,要抓住机遇深化贷款转让市场建设,促进我国金融市场持续、稳定、健康发展。     

长寿风险对寿险和年金产品定价的对冲效应研究

作为老龄社会的重要风险,长寿风险专题研究是近20年来公共养老金领域、保险公司关注的热点。长寿风险引发的保险公司寿险产品定价高估和年金产品定价低估之间存在潜在的自然对冲效应。为了量化这种对冲效应的长期影响,本文基于构建的同时涵盖低龄、高龄和超高龄在内的整个生命跨度的全年龄人口动态死亡率模型,采用对冲弹性量化终身寿险与终身年金、两全保险与定期年金、递延寿险与递延年金三类保障型寿险产品和养老型年金产品对冲效应的动态演变,并通过敏感性分析扩展探讨利率变化对对冲效应的长期影响。研究发现,从单位寿险和年金产品组合的净对冲效应来看,由于保险公司的产品定价区分了性别差异,使得女性的对冲效应更明显,因而女性对应的产品组合中的长寿风险对保险公司的影响更不显著。作为系统性风险,利率风险和长寿风险也存在对冲,利率上升能抵消或对冲长寿风险的影响,低利率下长寿风险更显著。     

关于促进我国贷款转让市场规范健康发展的思考

《贷款转让交易主协议》的发布和交易平台的上线运行,初步奠定了我国贷款转让市场发展的基本框架,但与美国等发达贷款转让市场相比,我国贷款转让市场仍处于发展初级阶段,在市场主体、基础设施、制度建设等方面仍存在不少亟需完善之处。下一阶段,应通过进一步完善主体结构、健全市场机制、加强政策协调、强化自律管理等举措,推动贷款转让市场的规范、健康、可持续发展。     

Recovering the market risk premium from higher-order moment risks

We propose a consistent approach for the estimation of the market risk premium. As a first step, we define the broadest possible set of ex ante estimators from the viewpoint of a power utility optimiser holding the market portfolio. We then employ an evaluation framework to optimise the parametrisation of the methodology. We show that this theoretical framework can still produce reasonable market risk premium estimates, even when the representative agent is not a power utility optimiser. Our results show that the inclusion of higher-order moment risk premia improves the accuracy of the method.     

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。     

发展贷款转让市场对转变商业银行经营方式的积极意义

银行间贷款转让市场的建成,标志着金融机构信贷资产转让交易机制的规范化运行,这对于促进商业银行从持有信贷资产向经营信贷资产转型、改进和完善其资本管理手段、形成信贷业务专业化与差异化发展、助推我国信贷资产证券化和贷款利率市场化发展,部将产生积极而深远的影响。     

Time-varying risk preferences and emerging market co-movements

This paper examines how shocks can transmit across international stock markets through the channel of time-varying investor risk preferences. We highlight the effects of this channel by comparing the conventional constant relative risk aversion utility function with the habit-formation utility function of Campbell and Cochrane (J. Pol. Econ. 107 (1999) 205). Calibrating our model with data from Argentina, Korea and Mexico, we find that in the presence of time-varying investor risk preferences, market integration generates a substantial increase in cross-country co-movements of stock returns.     

Commodity futures hedging,risk aversion and the hedging horizon

This paper examines the impact of management preferences on optimal futures hedging strategy and associated performance. Applying an expected utility hedging objective, the optimal futures hedge ratio is determined for a range of preferences on risk aversion, hedging horizon and expected returns. Empirical results reveal substantial hedge ratio variation across distinct management preferences and are supportive of the hedging policies of real firms. Hedging performance is further shown to be strongly dependent on underlying preferences. In particular, hedgers with high risk aversion and short horizon reduce hedge portfolio risk but achieve inferior utility in comparison to those with low aversion.     

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.     

Tests of the efficiency of the U.S. rights offering market: An option pricing approach

The efficiency of the U.S. market for stock purchase rights is empirically analyzed in an options framework, in which prices of rights, given the prices of underlying stock, are examined with regard to the possibilities of actually earning above-normal profits, considering the risk taken. Two neutral hedging tests for market efficiency, along with a simple buy-and-exercise trading strategy, are applied to daily traded rights data. Results from ex-post hedging tests suggest that the trading strategy based on the rights valuation model is able to differentiate between overpriced and underpriced rights so as to generate substantial book profits. The positive ex-ante hedge return, found to exist empirically, is completely eliminated once transaction costs are introduced, lending support for the efficient U.S. rights offering market on an after-transaction cost basis.     

Understanding,modelling and managing longevity risk: key issues and main challenges

This article investigates the latest developments in longevity-risk modelling, and explores the key risk management challenges for both the financial and insurance industries. The article discusses key definitions that are crucial for the enhancement of the way longevity risk is understood, providing a global view of the practical issues for longevity-linked insurance and pension products that have evolved concurrently with the steady increase in life expectancy since s. In addition, the article frames the recent and forthcoming developments that are expected to action industry-wide changes as more effective regulation, designed to better assess and efficiently manage inherited risks, is adopted. Simultaneously, the evolution of longevity is intensifying the need for capital markets to be used to manage and transfer the risk through what are known as Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS). Thus, the article will examine the emerging scenarios, and will finally highlight some important potential developments for longevity-risk management from a financial perspective with reference to the most relevant modelling and pricing practices in the banking industry.     

Assessing the credit risk of money market funds during the eurozone crisis

This paper measures credit risk in prime money market funds (MMFs) and studies how such credit risk evolved during the eurozone crisis of 2011–2012. To accomplish this, we estimate the annualized expected loss on each fund's portfolio. We also calculate by Monte Carlo the cost of insuring a fund against losses amounting to over 50 basis points. We find that credit risk of prime MMFs, though small, doubled from 12 basis points in June 2011 to 23 basis points in December 2011 before receding in 2012. Contrary to common perceptions, this did not primarily reflect funds’ credit exposure to eurozone banks because funds took measures to reduce this exposure. Instead, credit risk in prime MMFs rose because of the deteriorating credit outlook of banks in the Asia/Pacific region. We conclude that the increase in the credit risk of prime MMFs in the second half of 2011 reflected contagion in the worldwide banking system coupled with slowing global economic growth, not actions taken by MMFs.