On the Interaction between Transfer Restrictions and Crediting Strategies in Guaranteed Funds

Guaranteed funds with crediting rates for fixed periods determined by a pension provider or insurance company are common features of accumulation annuity contracts. Policyholders can transfer money back and forth between these accounts and money market accounts that give them features similar to demand deposits, and yet they frequently credit a higher rate than the money market. Transfer restrictions are commonly employed to prevent arbitrage. In this article, we model the interaction between company and policyholder as a multiperiod game in which the company maximizes risk-neutral expected present value of profits and the policyholder maximizes his expected discounted utility. We find that the optimal strategy on the part of the company is to credit a rate higher than the money market rate in the first period to entice the policyholder to invest in the guaranteed fund. The company then credits the floor in the remaining periods as the policyholder transfers out the maximum amount. This does better for the policyholder in low interest rate environments and worse in high interest rate environments and acts as a type of “interest rate insurance” for the policyholder.     

The tax benefit of income smoothing

A worker can reduce tax liability by contributing to a private pension plan when marginal tax rates are high and withdraw pension benefits when marginal tax rates are low. We quantify the tax benefit of income smoothing through the private retirement system and find that it is negligible. This conclusion is important to households, investment advisers, tax policymakers, and scholars engaged in financial retirement planning.     

University-Provided Retirement Planning Support and Retiree Financial Satisfaction During Retirement: Differences by Gender, Job Classification, and Planning Behavior

Sound financial planning and financial advice is necessary to achieve retirement income adequacy. The shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension plans and the recent bankruptcy of Enron Corporation underscore the importance of managing retirement accumulation and liquidation risks. This study analyzes the effectiveness and adequacy of institutional-provided information and advice on employees' retirement planning decisions and their satisfaction with financial resources during retirement. Results suggest that retirement planning should begin earlier in an employee's career and that employer-provided retirement information and advice is a highly valued service. Gender, planning practices, job classification, and age are all significant predictors of satisfaction with financial resources during retirement. Targeting women and union employees with retirement information and advice that focuses on allocating contributions using a balanced portfolio approach should result in significant increases in satisfaction with financial resources during retirement. Regulatory objectives should focus on reducing retirement accumulation and liquidation risks, improving the delivery of professional financial advice to plan participants, and expanding qualified retirement plan choice for all labor force participants. To encourage employer participation in employee retirement planning, employers acting in "good faith" should be federally protected from liability for providing retirement planning information and advice to employees.     

The risk of a currency swap: a multivariate-binomial methodology

In general, the risk of a financial instrument on a future valuation date depends on several stochastic variables. In the case of a currency swap, its value on a future date, can be modelled as a function of five stochastic variables. These represent the factors that determine the term structure of interest rates in the two currencies, and the foreign exchange rate between the currencies. The joint-probability distribution of the relevant variables on the horizon date is approximated by a multivariate-binomial distribution. The proposed methodology provides a fast and flexible alternative to Monte-Carlo simulation of the swap value. The distributions of value produced by the method can be employed to assist with both market and credit risk management.     

A Comparative Analysis of Financial Professionals’ Perception of the Level of Graduating Business Student Retirement Planning Familiarity,Motivation, and Preparedness

Academic, government, employer, and individual interest in personal financial literacy have mushroomed as financial decision making has become more complex, costly, and less paternalistic. Financial illiteracy in America manifests in many ways, including low levels of personal saving, high levels of personal debt, negative financial wealth, a decline in standard of living, and increased demand on social safety networks. For college students, of particular concern is the high level of public and private debt accrued while working toward a degree. It is important to understand how prepared households are for retirement planning decisions and which factors can improve their preparedness. We show that financial education is impactful in reducing financial illiteracy, and provides evidence that taking a personal risk management and insurance course helps to prepare college students to make retirement decisions. Second, we provide evidence that life stage explains differences (similarities) in how professionals self‐rate the importance, familiarity, and motivation to plan and save for retirement versus their opinion on how vital the questions should be to students. Finally, additional evidence is provided showing that demographic characteristics explain differences in the importance and motivation to plan and save for retirement and in the familiarity that respondents have with retirement planning and saving products.     

Interest rate changes and the timing of debt issues

There is much recent interest in the role of market timing in firm financial decisions. Using a large detailed sample of corporate public debt issues, private placements, Rule 144A issues and bank loans over the period 1970–2006, we investigate the relationship between interest rate changes and issues of floating and fixed-rate debt. Our results indicate that both past and future rates are associated with issuance decisions. We examine whether firms are able to lower their cost of capital by anticipating future rate changes, controlling for firm characteristics and market conditions. Our findings suggest that evidence of timing success is dependent on the time interval and type of debt examined. Over the longest time intervals available in our data, we do not find evidence of timing ability for fixed-rate or floating-rate debt issues.     

Financial literacy and the timing of tax-preferred savings account withdrawals

Tax deductions on contributions to registered savings vehicles are a common policy tool used by governments in many industrialized countries to encourage people to save for retirement. However, these plans do not typically lock in funds, which means savers may also withdraw before retirement when their marginal tax rates are still high and forgo the tax benefit. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which pre-retirement savings withdrawals respond to changes in the net-of-tax benefit of withdrawing and whether such behavior depends on the saver’s financial literacy. To that end, we link respondents of a nationally representative financial capability survey from Canada to over 15 years of administrative tax data. Our results show that the correlation between savings withdrawals and the effective marginal tax rate is negative for those with higher financial literacy, but much weaker and sometimes statistically insignificant for those with lower financial literacy. The findings suggest that financial literacy is an important determinant of the extent to which tax-deductible savings plans are used efficiently.     

银行理财产品收益率市场化演进机制研究——基于修正Hotelling模型的理论分析与实证检验

本文利用修正的Hotelling模型对我国银行理财产品收益率的市场化演进机制进行了理论分析,并使用2005至2019年的银行理财产品历史数据进行了实证检验,得到了一系列结论。第一,收益率落后的“输家”银行下期将以更大的相对幅度提高其收益率,呈现出“输家”追赶“赢家”的锦标赛竞争机制。第二,上述竞争机制受到“输家”银行排名、不同银行之间收益率差距和监管政策的影响。“输家”银行排名越靠后、不同银行之间的收益率差距越大,那么,下期“输家”银行提高其理财产品收益率的相对幅度就越大,不同银行之间的竞争行为就越强烈;与之相对的,监管政策越严,则不同银行之间的竞争强度越弱。本文的研究结论对进一步深入理解我国存款市场化利率的形成机制、加强对商业银行的监管和引导有一定的借鉴和启示意义。     

A Model of the Commercial Loan Rate

This paper explores the theoretical and empirical determinants of the commercial loan rate charged by commercial banks based on a model of financial intermediary behavior which assumes monopolistic competition in asset and liability markets. The model incorporates the constraint that banks must maintain at least a minimum quantity of bonds in asset portfolios. Equations are estimated on a time series basis to explain the behavior of commercial loan rates over the period 1953 to 1980. The evidence appears consistent with the hypothesis that commercial banks operate in a market characterized by imperfect competition and that they explicitly set loan rates.     

Measuring Integrated Market and Credit Risk in Bank Portfolios: An Application to a Set of Hypothetical Banks Operating in South Africa

The banking crises of the ‘90s emphasize the need to model the connections between financial environment volatility and the potential losses faced by financial institutions resulting from correlated market and credit risks. Due to the number of variables that must be modeled and the complexity of the relationships an analytical solution is not feasible. We present here a numerical solution based on a simulation model that explicitly links changes in the relevant variables that characterize the financial environment and the distribution of possible future bank capital ratios. This forward looking quantitative risk assessment methodology allows banks and regulators to identify potential risks before they materialize and make appropriate adjustments to bank portfolio credit qualities, sector and region concentrations, and capital ratios on a bank by bank basis. It also has the potential to be extended so as to assess the risks of correlated failures among a group of financial institutions (i.e., systemic risk analyses). This model was applied by the authors to the study of the risk profile of the largest South African Banks in the context of the Financial System Stability Assessment program undertaken by the IMF in 1999. In the current study, we apply the model to various hypothetical banks operating in the South African financial environment and assess the correlated market and credit risks associated with business lending, mortgage lending, asset and liability maturity matches, foreign lending and borrowing, and direct equity, real estate, and gold investments. It is shown to produce simulated financial environments (interest rates, exchange rates, equity indices, real estate price indices, commodity prices, and economic indicators) that match closely the assumed parameters, and generate reasonable credit transition probabilities and security prices. As expected, the credit quality and diversification characteristics of the loan portfolio, asset and liability maturity mismatches, and financial environment volatility, are shown to interact to determine bank risk levels. We find that the credit quality of a bank's loan portfolio is the most important risk factor. We also show the risk reduction benefits of diversifying the loan portfolio across various sectors and regions of the economy and the importance of accounting for volatility shocks that occur periodically in emerging economies. Banks with high credit risk and concentrated portfolios are shown to have a high risk of failure during periods of financial stress. Alternatively, banks with lower credit risk and broadly diversified loan portfolios across business and mortgage lending are unlikely to fail even during very volatile periods. Asset and liability maturity mismatches generally increase bank risk levels. However, because credit losses are positively correlated with interest rate increases, banks with high credit risk may reduce overall risk levels by holding liabilities with longer maturities than their assets. Risk assessment methodologies which measure market and credit risk separately do not capture these various interactions and thus misestimate overall risk levels.     

Long guarantees with short duration: the rolling annuity

We present a new type of with-profits annuities which offer lifelong, yet hedgeable, guarantees. The rolling annuity gives a minimum lifelong guarantee at the time of contribution complemented with a series of guaranteed increases prior to retirement. Importantly, the initial guarantee and the subsequent increases are all set at prevailing market rates and hence are not known in advance. The structure of the guarantee implies that, prior to the last increase, the liability is equivalent to a zero-coupon bond maturing at the next increase and can therefore easily be hedged in the financial markets. Furthermore, the short duration implies that the financial and regulatory value will (essentially) coincide. We show financial fairness and we derive the reserve and thereby the hedging strategy. We also consider longevity risk, the duration profile, and report on a simulation study of the real value of the final payout.     

The arbitrage-free valuation and hedging of demand deposits and credit card loans

Using a market segmentation argument, this paper uses the interest rate derivative's arbitrage-free methodology to value both demand deposit liabilities and credit card loan balances in markets where deposits/loan rates may be determined under imperfect competition. In this context, these financial instruments are shown to be equivalent to a particular interest rate swap, where the principal depends on the past history of market rates. Solutions are obtained which are independent of any particular model for the evolution of the term structure of interest rates.     

2012年1月国内金融形势评述

2012年1月份，受春节因素影响，金融运行多项指标有所波动。主要特点是：广义货币和狭义货币增速双双回落；信贷投放少于上年同期,主要是中长期贷款少增较多；存款增长有所放缓，春节因素导致企业存款明显向个人转移；银行间市场交易活跃，市场利率季节性上升；与上年末比，人民币汇率贬值0．17％，海外市场对人民币汇率的预期由贬值转为升值。     

放松利率管制、利润率均等化与实体企业“脱实向虚”

本文以我国贷款利率上下限放开为准自然实验,基于产权性质差异构造双重差分模型,实证考察放松利率管制如何影响实体企业金融化。研究发现:放松贷款利率下限管制能够显著抑制非国有企业金融化程度,而放松贷款利率上限管制则无显著作用,支持了“市场套利观”。机制检验发现贷款利率下限管制的放松显著抑制企业债务成本对企业利润的侵蚀作用;拓展性检验还发现对于盈利能力越强、规模越大以及市场竞争压力越小的公司,放松贷款利率下限管制对抑制非国有企业金融化的作用更显著。以上研究结论表明,实体经济与虚拟经济间的利润率差距是我国实体企业金融化的重要诱因,金融市场化改革有助于抑制实体企业金融化、改善“实体经济”与“虚拟经济”间的良性互动关系,从而助推实体经济的健康发展。     

Temporal Patterns in Foreign Exchange Returns and Options

Although the foreign exchange market is believed to be one of the most efficient financial markets in the world, there is significant evidence that technical analysis is profitable in this market. In this study we investigate the ability of information from the options market to supplement the commonly used information on past prices to predict temporal patterns in foreign exchange returns. We find that strategies using information from at-the-money options were more consistently profitable than the commonly used strategies based on only historical spot exchange rates (past prices). Consequently, options appear to contain information regarding future spot exchange rate movements.     

中国的利率体系与利率市场化改革

利率对宏观经济均衡和资源配置有重要导向意义。央行确定政策利率要符合经济规律、宏观调控和跨周期设计需要。目前,中国的真实利率略低于经济增速,处于较为合理水平。中国已形成较为完整的市场化利率体系,主要通过货币政策工具调节银行体系流动性,释放政策利率调控信号,在利率走廊的辅助下,引导市场基准利率以政策利率为中枢运行,并通过银行体系传导至贷款利率,调节和优化资源配置,实现货币政策目标。中国具备继续实施正常货币政策的条件,将尽可能地延长正常货币政策的时间,目前不需要实施资产购买操作。在市场化利率体系中,收益率曲线非常重要,它反映利率由短及长的期限结构,可为各类金融产品和市场主体提供定价参考。收益率曲线的短端为货币市场基准利率,直接受央行货币政策操作的影响;长端则为国债收益率,主要反映市场对未来宏观经济走势的预期。经过多年发展,我国的国债收益率曲线应用日益广泛,整体趋于成熟,而在市场基础方面还有进一步提升的空间。     

Forward rates as predictors of future spot rates

When adjusted for variation through time in expected premiums, the forward rates of interest that are implicit in Treasury Bill prices contain assessments of expected future spot rates of interest that are about as good as those that can be obtained from the information in past spot rates. Moreover, in setting bill prices and forward rates, the market reacts appropriately to the negative autocorrelation in monthly changes in the spot rate and to changes through time in the degree of this autocorrelation. This evidence is consistent with the market efficiency proposition that in setting bill prices, the market correctly uses the information in past spot rates.     

Evaluating the Risks of Modeling Assumptions Used in Risk Measurement

Over the past few years, risk measurement has become an important, high-profile responsibility for most firms in the financial services industry. With advances in academic theory and in technology, financial risk modeling has grown increasingly sophisticated. Most firms rely on a number of models to analyze their market risks (for example, sensitivity to changes in interest rates, exchange rates, commodity prices, and so on) for asset/liability management. But it is critical to recognize that even the most sophisticated models must make assumptions about key parameters that affect the results of the analysis. This so-called “model risk” reflects the fact that in the real world risk factors are unstable and the historical data upon which many modeling inputs are based can change. This paper discusses model risk, gives specific examples of how model risk can affect fixed-income portfolio valuation, and explains why risk measurement should involve stress testing of key modeling assumptions. If the results of a valuation or asset/liability analysis change dramatically given a small change in a modeling assumption, management may wish to reduce the firm’s exposure to that risk factor, as absolute certainty in financial modeling is an unobtainable goal.     

The Impact of the Federal Reserve's Large‐Scale Asset Purchase Programs on Corporate Credit Risk

Estimating the effect of Federal Reserve's announcements of Large‐Scale Asset Purchase (LSAP) programs on corporate credit risk is complicated by the simultaneity of policy decisions and movements in prices of risky financial assets, as well as by the fact that both interest rates of assets targeted by the programs and indicators of credit risk reacted to other common shocks during the recent financial crisis. This paper employs a heteroskedasticity‐based approach to estimate the structural coefficient measuring the sensitivity of market‐based indicators of corporate credit risk to declines in the benchmark market interest rates prompted by the LSAP announcements. The results indicate that the LSAP announcements led to a significant reduction in the cost of insuring against default risk—as measured by the CDX indexes—for both investment‐ and speculative‐grade corporate credits. While the unconventional policy measures employed by the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy have substantially lowered the overall level of credit risk in the economy, the LSAP announcements appear to have had no measurable effect on credit risk in the financial intermediary sector.     

A bibliometric review of financial market integration literature

We undertake a meta-literature review on the topic of financial market integration (FMI), covering 260 articles from 1981 to 2021. Our review consists of quantitative analysis of bibliometric citations concomitant with qualitative analysis of content, towards a goal of identifying primary research streams and proposing directions for future research. We identify five research groups: (1) portfolio diversification with financial market integration; (2) general equity market integration; (3) financial market linkage with respect to crises and events; (4) time-varying financial market integration; and (5) co-movements and spillovers between commodities and financial markets; as well as present a wide array of future research directions. We conduct an extensive review of FMI literature, answering several questions: (1) What is the domain of FMI research?; (2) What are the influential aspects of top journals and authors, and the characteristics of the most studied topics?; (3) What are the past and current key research streams in FMI literature?; and (4) What are the substantial future relevant research questions to explore regarding FMI? Given the ongoing attention on financial market integration by both academicians and policy makers, our results should be of great interest.