A test of risk arbitrage profitability

We explore the performance of risk arbitrage involving three types of merger offers: cash tender, stock swap, and collar offers for the period between 1990 and 2000. Our result reveals that risk arbitrage for a successful stock offer generates higher returns than a successful cash offer. This finding implies that the profitability of risk arbitrage depends on the level of asymmetric information associated with the payment method. We also find that the beta of typical risk arbitrage positions/portfolios is heavily influenced by the payment method and market conditions.     

The Risk Map: A new tool for validating risk models

This paper presents a new method to validate risk models: the Risk Map. This method jointly accounts for the number and the magnitude of extreme losses and graphically summarizes all information about the performance of a risk model. It relies on the concept of a super exception, which is defined as a situation in which the loss exceeds both the standard Value-at-Risk (VaR) and a VaR defined at an extremely low probability. We then formally test whether the sequences of exceptions and super exceptions are rejected by standard model validation tests. We show that the Risk Map can be used to validate market, credit, operational, or systemic risk estimates (VaR, stressed VaR, expected shortfall, and CoVaR) or to assess the performance of the margin system of a clearing house.     

Credit risk transfer activities and systemic risk: How banks became less risky individually but posed greater risks to the financial system at the same time

A main cause of the crisis of 2007-2009 is the various ways through which banks have transferred credit risk in the financial system. We study the systematic risk of banks before the crisis, using two samples of banks respectively trading Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and issuing Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs). After their first usage of either risk transfer method, the share price beta of these banks increases significantly. This suggests the market anticipated the risks arising from these methods, long before the crisis. We additionally separate this beta effect into a volatility and a market correlation component. Quite strikingly, this decomposition shows that the increase in the beta is solely due to an increase in banks’ correlations. Thus, while banks may have shed their individual credit risk, they actually posed greater systemic risk. This creates a challenge for financial regulation, which has typically focused on individual institutions.     

Risk adjustment and momentum sources

We show that the conventional procedure of risk adjustment by running full-sample time-series Fama-French three-factor regressions is not appropriate for momentum portfolios because the procedure fails to allow for the systematic dynamics of momentum portfolio factor loadings. We propose a simple procedure to adjust risks associated with the Fama-French three factors for momentum portfolios. Using our proposed method, the Fama-French three factors can explain approximately 40% of momentum profits generated by individual stocks and nearly all of momentum returns from style portfolios.     

The impact of terrorism on financial markets: An empirical study

The main focus of this paper is to study empirically the impact of terrorism on the behavior of stock, bond and commodity markets. We consider terrorist events that took place in 25 countries over an 11-year time period and implement our analysis using different methods: an event-study approach, a non-parametric methodology, and a filtered GARCH-EVT approach. In addition, we compare the effect of terrorist attacks on financial markets with the impact of other extreme events such as financial crashes and natural catastrophes. The results of our analysis show that a non-parametric approach is the most appropriate method among the three for analyzing the impact of terrorism on financial markets. We demonstrate the robustness of this method when interest rates, equity market integration, spillover and contemporaneous effects are controlled. We show how the results of this approach can be used for investors’ portfolio diversification strategies against terrorism risk.     

The term structure of banking crisis risk in the United States: A market data based compound option approach

We use a compound option-based structural credit risk model to estimate banking crisis risk for the United States based on market data on bank stocks on a daily frequency. We contribute to the literature by providing separate information on short-term, long-term and total crisis risk instead of a single-maturity risk measure usually inferred by Merton-type models or barrier models. We estimate the model by applying the Duan (1994) maximum-likelihood approach. A strongly increasing total crisis risk estimated from early July 2007 onwards is driven mainly by short-term crisis risk. Banks that defaulted or were overtaken during the crisis have a considerably higher crisis risk (especially higher long-term risk) than banks that survived the crisis.     

Transatlantic systemic risk

In this paper we study systemic risk for the US and Europe. We show that banks’ exposures to common risk factors are crucial for systemic risk. We come to this conclusion by first showing that relations between US and European banks are smaller than within each region. We then show that European banks react more strongly to the onset of the financial crisis than US banks. Regarding the consequences of systemic risk, we show that dependence between the banking sector and a wide range of real sectors is limited. Our results imply that regulators and supervisors should address international bank dependencies arising from common risk factors, while recessions in real sectors due to bank defaults should be a secondary concern.     

A systematic approach to multi-period stress testing of portfolio credit risk

We propose a new method for analysing multi-period stress scenarios for portfolio credit risk more systematically than in current macro stress tests. The plausibility of a scenario is quantified by its distance from an average scenario. For a given level of plausibility, we search systematically for the most adverse scenario. This ensures that no plausible scenario will be missed. We show how this method can be applied to some models already in use by practitioners. While worst case search requires numerical optimisation we show that we can work with reasonably good linear approximations to the portfolio loss function. This makes systematic multi-period stress testing computationally efficient and easy to implement. Applying our approach to data from the Spanish loan register we show that, compared to standard stress test procedures, our method identifies more harmful scenarios that are equally plausible.     

Determinants of earnout as acquisition payment currency and bidder’s value gains

We examine the wealth effects of a comprehensive sample of UK bidders offering contingent payment, or earnout, as consideration for their acquisitions. We show that bidders using earnout generate significantly higher announcement and post-acquisition value gains than bidders using non-earnout currencies (such as cash, stock exchange, or mixed payments). We construct a logistic model to predict when it is optimal for a bidder to offer earnout. We show that bidders offering earnout optimally enjoy significantly higher announcement and post-acquisition gains than bidders offering non-earnout currencies, consistent with our model of the choice of the optimal method of payment. Overall, we provide robust evidence that earnout is an effective payment mechanism to mitigate valuation risk to acquirers, and also enhances acquirer value during the announcement and post-acquisition periods. Our paper contributes to the broader literature on how corporate acquirers use payment currency to manage information asymmetry and the attendant valuation risk.     

Income diversification and risk: Does ownership matter? An empirical examination of Indian banks

We examine the impact of ownership on income diversification and risk for Indian banks over the period 2001–2009. We investigate both the determinants of non-interest income and the impact of diversification on various profitability and insolvency risk measures for public sector, private domestic, and foreign banks. We document that ownership does matter in the pursuit of non-interest income. Relative to private domestic banks, public sector banks earn significantly less fee-income, while foreign banks report higher fee income. Public sector banks with higher levels of governmental ownership are significantly less likely to pursue non-interest income sources. Fee-based income significantly reduces risk, measured by profitability variables, for public sector banks. Default risk is also reduced for these banks. From a regulatory perspective, it appears that diversification benefits India’s public sector banks. Our research has implications for the changes in the risk profile for banks in emerging banking markets pursuing non-interest revenue sources.     

EXPONENTIAL DURATION: A MORE ACCURATE ESTIMATION OF INTEREST RATE RISK

We develop a new method to estimate the interest rate risk of an asset. This method is based on modified duration and is always more accurate than traditional estimation with modified duration. The estimates by this method are close to estimates using traditional duration plus convexity when interest rates decrease. If interest rates rise, investors will suffer larger value declines than predicted by traditional duration plus convexity estimate. The new method avoids this undesirable value overestimation and provides an estimate slightly below the true value. For risk‐averse investors, overestimation of value declines is more desirable and conservative.     

Learning by Failing: A Simple VaR Buffer

We study in this article the problem of model risk in VaR computations and document a procedure for correcting the bias due to specification and estimation errors. This practical method consists of “learning from model mistakes”, since it dynamically relies on an adjustment of the VaR estimates – based on a back‐testing framework – such as the frequency of past VaR exceptions always matches the expected probability. We finally show that integrating the model risk into the VaR computations implies a substantial minimum correction to the order of 10–40% of VaR levels.     

THE GRAMM‐LEACH‐BLILEY ACT OF 1999: RISK IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY

We document significant risk changes in the financial services industry following the passage of the Gramm‐Leach‐Bliley Act of 1999. Banks experience an increase in risk regardless of whether they have taken steps to participate actively in the investment banking business. Insurance companies also experience an increase in risk, whereas securities firms experience a decrease in risk. We attribute the increase in risk for banks and insurance companies to the fact that the securities business is relatively more risky, and the decline in risk for securities firms to the fact that they can now diversify into relatively less risky banking and insurance businesses.     

THE EFFECTS OF BANK CONSOLIDATION ON RISK CAPITAL ALLOCATION AND MARKET LIQUIDITY

We investigate the effects of financial market consolidation on the allocation of risk capital in a financial institution and the implications for market liquidity in dealership markets. An increase in financial market consolidation can increase liquidity in foreign exchange and government securities markets. We assume that financial institutions use risk‐management tools in the allocation of risk capital and that capital is determined at the firm level and allocated among separate business lines or divisions. The ability of market makers to supply liquidity is influenced by their risk‐bearing capacity, which is directly related to the amount of risk capital allocated to this activity.     

DO FOREIGN INVESTORS PRICE FOREIGN EXCHANGE RISK DIFFERENTLY?

We test whether foreign investors price foreign exchange risk differently from local investors. Drawing from the closed‐end country fund literature, we argue that both differential access to information by foreign versus local investors and different sources of exchange risk that investors face (economic or translation exposure) will lead to different pricing of the exchange risk associated with American Depositary Receipt (ADR) investments. We apply a two‐step method to country portfolios of ADRs of Australia, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Our results show that foreign investors generally price exchange risk differently from local investors, and that the source and magnitude of differences in exchange risk pricing vary significantly across countries. Although significant differences in pricing exchange risk between foreign and local investors are observed for Australia, France, and Japan, no such pricing difference is noticed for the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the pricing differences observed for Australian and French ADRs are mainly attributed to the exchange risk of underlying share returns (economic exposure), whereas the pricing differences for Japanese ADRs are mainly attributed to the exchange risk associated with currency translation (translation exposure). We offer some explanations for our findings.     

Credit default swap spreads and variance risk premia

We find that the firm-level variance risk premium has a prominent explanatory power for credit spreads in the presence of market- and firm-level control variables established in the existing literature. Such predictability complements that of the leading state variable—the leverage ratio—and strengthens significantly with a lower firm credit rating, longer credit contract maturity, and model-free implied variance. We provide further evidence that (1) the variance risk premium has a cleaner systematic component than implied variance or expected variance, (2) the cross-section of firms’ variance risk premia capture systematic variance risk in a stronger way than firms’ equity returns in capturing market return risk, and (3) a structural model with stochastic volatility can reproduce the predictability pattern of variance risk premia for credit spreads.     

Ownership structure and risk in publicly held and privately owned banks

Using detailed ownership data for a sample of European commercial banks, we analyze the link between ownership structure and risk in both privately owned and publicly held banks. We consider five categories of shareholders that are specific to our dataset. We find that ownership structure is significant in explaining risk differences but mainly for privately owned banks. A higher equity stake of either individuals/families or banking institutions is associated with a decrease in asset risk and default risk. In addition, institutional investors and non-financial companies impose the riskiest strategies when they hold higher stakes. For publicly held banks, changes in ownership structure do not affect risk taking. Market forces seem to align the risk-taking behavior of publicly held banks, such that ownership structure is no longer a determinant in explaining risk differences. However, higher stakes of banking institutions in publicly held banks are associated with lower credit and default risk.     

Systemic risk measurement: Multivariate GARCH estimation of CoVaR

We modify Adrian and Brunnermeier’s (2011) CoVaR, the VaR of the financial system conditional on an institution being in financial distress. We change the definition of financial distress from an institution being exactly at its VaR to being at most at its VaR. This change allows us to consider more severe distress events, to backtest CoVaR, and to improve its consistency (monotonicity) with respect to the dependence parameter. We define the systemic risk contribution of an institution as the change from its CoVaR in its benchmark state (defined as a one-standard deviation event) to its CoVaR under financial distress. We estimate the systemic risk contributions of four financial industry groups consisting of a large number of institutions for the sample period June 2000 to February 2008 and the 12 months prior to the beginning of the crisis. We also investigate the link between institutions’ contributions to systemic risk and their characteristics.     

The impact of risk and uncertainty on expected returns

We study asset pricing in economies featuring both risk and uncertainty. In our empirical analysis, we measure risk via return volatility and uncertainty via the degree of disagreement of professional forecasters, attributing different weights to each forecaster. We empirically model the typical risk-return trade-off and augment these models with our measure of uncertainty. We find stronger empirical evidence for an uncertainty-return trade-off than for the traditional risk-return trade-off. Finally, we investigate the performance of a two-factor model with risk and uncertainty in the cross section.     

Operational risk

This paper provides an economic and mathematical characterization of operational risk useful for clarifying the issues related to estimation and the determination of economic capital. The insights for this characterization originate in the corporate finance literature. Operational risk is subdivided into two types, either: (i) the risk of a loss due to the firm’s operating technology, or (ii) the risk of a loss due to agency costs. These two types of operational risks generate loss processes with different economic characteristics. We argue that the current methodology for the determination of economic capital for operational risk is overstated. It is biased high because the computation omits the bank’s net present value (NPV) generating process. We also show that although it is conceptually possible to estimate the operational risk processes’ parameters using only market prices, the non-observability of the firm’s value makes this an unlikely possibility, except in rare cases. Instead, we argue that data internal to the firm, in conjunction with standard hazard rate estimation procedures, provides a more fruitful alternative.