BILATERAL COUNTERPARTY RISK UNDER FUNDING CONSTRAINTS—PART II: CVA

The correction in value of an over‐the‐counter derivative contract due to counterparty risk under funding constraints is represented as the value of a dividend‐paying option on the value of the contract clean of counterparty risk and excess funding costs. This representation allows one to analyze the structure of this correction, the so‐called Credit Valuation Adjustment (CVA for short), in terms of replacement cost/benefits, credit cost/benefits, and funding cost/benefits. We develop a reduced‐form backward stochastic differential equations (BSDE) approach to the problem of pricing and hedging the CVA. In the Markov setup, explicit CVA pricing and hedging schemes are formulated in terms of semilinear partial differential equations.     

Arbitrage‐free XVA

We develop a framework for computing the total valuation adjustment (XVA) of a European claim accounting for funding costs, counterparty credit risk, and collateralization. Based on no‐arbitrage arguments, we derive backward stochastic differential equations associated with the replicating portfolios of long and short positions in the claim. This leads to the definition of buyer's and seller's XVA, which in turn identify a no‐arbitrage interval. In the case that borrowing and lending rates coincide, we provide a fully explicit expression for the unique XVA, expressed as a percentage of the price of the traded claim, and for the corresponding replication strategies. In the general case of asymmetric funding, repo, and collateral rates, we study the semilinear partial differential equations characterizing buyer's and seller's XVA and show the existence of a unique classical solution to it. To illustrate our results, we conduct a numerical study demonstrating how funding costs, repo rates, and counterparty risk contribute to determine the total valuation adjustment.     

Options pricing and short-selling in the underlying: Evidence from India

This study provides new insights into certain recent developments in derivatives trading in India. Specifically, it examines the implications of introduction of short-selling for pricing efficiency of the Nifty 50 index derivative contracts of National Stock Exchange of India. The empirical results suggest that the introduction of short-selling, supported by a well-functioning security lending and borrowing market, has significantly reduced the overpricing of Nifty 50 index put options. Moreover, the introduction of this short-selling mechanism has lessened the underpricing of Nifty 50 index futures.     

ARBITRAGE IN SECURITIES MARKETS WITH SHORT-SALES CONSTRAINTS

In this paper we derive the implications of the absence of arbitrage in securities markets models where traded securities are subject to short-sales constraints and where the borrowing and lending rates differ. We show that a securities price system is arbitrage free if and only if there exists a numeraire and an equivalent probability measure for which the normalized (by the numeraire) price processes of traded securities are supermartingales. Also, the tightest arbitrage bounds that can be inferred on the price of a contingent claim without knowing agents'preferences are equal to its largest and smallest expected normalized payoff with respect to the supermartingale measures. In the case where the underlying security price follows a diffusion process and where short selling is possible but costly, we derive partial differential equations that must be satisfied by the arbitrage bounds on derivative securities prices, and we determine optimal hedging strategies. We compute the arbitrage bounds on common securities numerically for several values of the borrowing and short-selling costs and show that they can be quite sharp.     

Derivatives pricing with liquidity risk

This paper develops a novel, general derivative pricing model which introduces a liquidity risk factor. The model variants we outline offer a sufficient degree of flexibility so as to enable the valuation of various types of derivative classes including futures, American options, and mortgage backed security options, whereas existing derivative models can only price liquidity risk in European derivatives. We validate the model with oil and gold futures data and compare it to a classical benchmark model void of any liquidity risk. We find that our model is significantly more accurate than the classical model for pricing both oil and gold contracts.     

Pricing collateralized derivatives with an arbitrary numeraire

Since the 2008 crisis collateralized derivatives have become commonplace in the market. There have been many papers in recent years on pricing collateralized derivatives but the topic has been surrounded by confusion with debate focusing on whether or not a risk‐free rate needs to be assumed. In addition, as pointed out by Bielecki and Rutkowski, several authors do not pay enough attention to the pricing measure they are working in when setting up their models. The contribution of this paper is to show the pricing formula for a collateralized derivative can be derived under the usual assumptions of an arbitrage‐free economy starting from any equivalent martingale measure and associated numeraire.     

Fair bilateral pricing under funding costs and exogenous collateralization

Bielecki and Rutkowski introduced and studied a generic nonlinear market model, which includes several risky assets, multiple funding accounts, and margin accounts. In this paper, we examine the pricing and hedging of contract from the perspective of both the hedger and the counterparty with arbitrary initial endowments. We derive inequalities for unilateral prices and we study the range of fair bilateral prices. We also examine the positive homogeneity and monotonicity of unilateral prices with respect to the initial endowments. Our study hinges on results from Nie and Rutkowski for backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) driven by continuous martingales, but we also derive the pricing partial differential equations (PDEs) for path‐independent contingent claims of a European style in a Markovian framework.     

Voluntary disclosures and peer-to-peer lending decisions: Evidence from the repeated game

This study investigates the effect of voluntary disclosures on lending decisions in the repeated game. Using a unique dataset from a peer-to-peer lending platform,“ppdai” (paipaidai), we document that voluntary disclosures in the repeated game play a stronger role in promoting funding success than those in the one-shot game. We argue that voluntary disclosures improve the bidding activity in the repeated game through which they increase funding success. In addition, the greater impact of voluntary disclosures on funding success in the repeated game only holds for loans without a personal guarantee attribution. Our extended results suggest that the subjective voluntary disclosures in the repeated game have greater information content only when borrowers have a successful borrowing experience. We also point out that voluntary disclosures in the repeated game are associated with a lower probability of default. Our results are robust to the Heckman two-step estimation that addresses the self-selection effect and a specification designed to rule out the alternative explanation from reputation in the repeated game. Our study provides new insights into the real effects of costless, voluntary and unverifiable disclosures on lending decisions.     

Effects of Foreign Institutional Ownership on Foreign Bank Lending: Some Evidence for Emerging Markets

Despite the large literature on developed countries, little is known about the interactions between corporate governance, foreign ownership, and foreign bank lending in developing countries. Using data from five Latin American countries from 2001 to 2008, we provide one of the first pieces of evidence of how foreign ownership affects the loan cost of borrowers in emerging markets. We find that in terms of foreign bank lending, the cost of debt financing is significantly higher for firms whose largest shareholder is a foreign institutional one. The results support the hypothesis that because of potential agency conflicts between shareholders and creditors, having block institutional shareholders tend to increase the borrowers’ debt burden. There is further evidence supporting this agency conflict hypothesis as we find that the effects of large institutional shareholders on borrowing costs become larger (smaller) when the conflicts are aggravated (mitigated).     

PRICING DERIVATIVES ON MULTISCALE DIFFUSIONS: AN EIGENFUNCTION EXPANSION APPROACH

Using tools from spectral analysis, singular and regular perturbation theory, we develop a systematic method for analytically computing the approximate price of a large class of derivative‐assets. The payoff of the derivative‐assets may be path‐dependent. In addition, the process underlying the derivatives may exhibit killing (i.e., jump to default) as well as combined local/nonlocal stochastic volatility. The nonlocal component of volatility may be multiscale, in the sense that it may be driven by one fast‐varying and one slow‐varying factor. The flexibility of our modeling framework is contrasted by the simplicity of our method. We reduce the derivative pricing problem to that of solving a single eigenvalue equation. Once the eigenvalue equation is solved, the approximate price of a derivative can be calculated formulaically. To illustrate our method, we calculate the approximate price of three derivative‐assets: a vanilla option on a defaultable stock, a path‐dependent option on a nondefaultable stock, and a bond in a short‐rate model.     

‘Relationship Banking and SMEs: A Theoretical Analysis’

Reliable information on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is rare and costly for financial intermediaries. Therefore relationship banking is often considered as the appropriate lending technique. In this paper we offer a theoretical model to analyze relationship banking and the pricing behavior of banks in a Bertrand competition framework with monitoring costs. We show that the lack of reliable information leads to comparable high interest rates even if a long-term relationship between borrower and bank exists. The paper offers a theoretical explanation why SMEs often are faced with borrowing constraints. We are grateful to Franziska Holz, Caroline Kip, Claudia Nassif, Dorothea Schaefer, Philipp Schroeder, the DIW financial market group and an anonymous referee for valuable comments on an earlier version of the paper.     

Financial literacy and high‐cost borrowing: Exploring the mechanism

Recent studies have suggested that financial literacy is an important determinant of informed borrowing decisions. Despite the evidence that financially literate consumers are less likely to use alternative financial services, the mechanism through which financial literacy discourages demand for alternative financial services has yet to be fully understood. The previous studies proposed several explanations, such as the ability to undertake complex financial calculations and understand contract terms, to link financial literacy to savvy credit choices. This study evaluates the validity of this argument by examining whether or not financial knowledge plays a greater role in borrowing decisions where consumers are forced to rely on financial knowledge. It is assumed that consumers in an information‐sparse environment have a greater incentive to utilize financial knowledge to infer the hidden cost of borrowing contracts. To test this argument, this study examines the extent to which information availability moderates the negative impact of financial knowledge on rent‐to‐own transactions. Information content is captured by state‐level disclosure mandates for rental contracts, given that consumer in a loosely regulated state are exposed to less pricing information. The results illustrate that limited information strengthens the negative association between financial knowledge and rent‐to‐own transactions. This confirms the previous arguments that consumers are active thinkers who refer to financial knowledge to estimate the overall cost of borrowing.     

BILATERAL COUNTERPARTY RISK UNDER FUNDING CONSTRAINTS—PART I: PRICING

This and the follow‐up paper deal with the valuation and hedging of bilateral counterparty risk on over‐the‐counter derivatives. Our study is done in a multiple‐curve setup reflecting the various funding constraints (or costs) involved, allowing one to investigate the question of interaction between bilateral counterparty risk and funding. The first task is to define a suitable notion of no arbitrage price in the presence of various funding costs. This is the object of this paper, where we develop an “additive, multiple curve” extension of the classical “multiplicative (discounted), one curve” risk‐neutral pricing approach. We derive the dynamic hedging interpretation of such an “additive risk‐neutral” price, starting by consistency with pricing by replication in the case of a complete market. This is illustrated by a completely solved example building over previous work by Burgard and Kjaer.     

The DNA of the domestic value added (DVA) in exports: Firm‐level analysis of DVA in exports

This paper sheds light on the relationship between domestic value added in exports (DVA) and the different ways firms participate in GVCs by exploiting a detailed firm‐level data set for the whole population of Slovenian exporting firms for the period 2002–14. The paper draws attention to those firm characteristics that allow a greater share of DVA to be captured. Although reliance on industry‐level data from input–output tables is the most common way of doing this in the literature, this paper develops a method for estimating DVA in exports using firm‐level data by adapting the approach taken by Kee and Tang (2016). The paper finds that in terms of DVA, domestic‐owned exporting firms outperform more productive foreign‐owned firms and that firms not affiliated with permanent suppliers from abroad capture higher DVA in exports. Positive outcomes of DVA in exports can be observed, all else being equal, for firms with a larger share of intangible capital per worker and firms with a smaller share of exports based on imports of the same products. The results also show that when exporting more to less demanding markets, like the countries of former Yugoslavia, firms benefit more in terms of greater DVA gains in exports.     

Dividend‐Rollover Effect and the Ad Hoc Black‐Scholes Model

One of the most widely used option‐valuation models among practitioners is the ad hoc Black‐Scholes (AHBS) model. The main contribution of this study is methodological. We carefully consider three dividend strategies (No dividend, Implied‐forward dividend, and Actual dividend) for the AHBS model to investigate their effect on pricing errors. We suggest a new dividend strategy, implied‐forward dividend, which incorporates expectational information on dividends embedded in option prices. We demonstrate that our implied‐forward dividend strategy produces more consistent estimates between in‐sample market and model option prices. More importantly our new implied‐forward dividend strategy makes more accurate out‐of‐sample forecasts for one‐day or one‐week ahead prices. Second, we document that both a “Return‐volatility” Smile and a “Return‐pricing Error” Smile exist. From these return characteristics, we make two conclusions: (1) the return dependency of implied volatility is an important explanatory variable and should be controlled to reduce the pricing error of an AHBS model, and (2) it is important for the hedging horizon to be based on return size, that is, the larger the contemporaneous return, the more frequent an option issuer must rebalance the option's hedge. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 32:742‐772, 2012     

Do Lenders Cross-Subsidise Loans by Selling Payment Protection Insurance?

This study examines the recent UK regulatory decision to ban the joint provision of consumer lending and payment protection or credit insurance (hereafter PPI). This case has wide regulatory implications following concerns that the sale of PPI has been detrimental to customers due to overpriced PPI and a cross-subsidy flowing from PPI to unsecured lending. The study examines whether interest rate setting of unsecured lending is influenced by banks issuing PPI or otherwise to help establish whether such cross-subsidies have been made. This assessment is undertaken over time for a diverse and comprehensive selection of banks offering unsecured lending with and without PPI between 1998 and 2011 for three levels of borrowing. It is reported that offering PPI is a significant explanatory variable of unsecured lending interest rate levels. When unsecured lending is offered with PPI, interest rates are lower, a finding consistent with a cross-subsidy flowing from PPI remiums to unsecured lending.     

Valuation and Hedging of Differential Swaps

This paper derives a general‐form formula for pricing and hedging differential swaps with the principal denominated either in a domestic, foreign, or third‐country currency. We first derive the formula for differential swaps with the principal in a domestic currency and identify an error in the formula of Wei (1994). We then show the pricing duality between differential swaps with the principal in a domestic currency and differential swaps with the principal in a foreign currency. Finally, we complete the pricing and hedging analysis on differential swaps by deriving a formula for differential swaps with the principal denominated in a third‐country currency. Simulation results indicate that constant margin rates are generally smaller than interest rate differentials and decline with the tenor of swaps. Correlation parameters associated with the exchange rate play a more important role than correlation parameters among interest rates in pricing differential swaps. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:73–94, 2002     

Noncausal affine processes with applications to derivative pricing

Linear factor models, where the factors are affine processes, play a key role in Finance, since they allow for quasi-closed form expressions of the term structure of risks. We introduce the class of noncausal affine linear factor models by considering factors that are affine in reverse time. These models are especially relevant for pricing sequences of speculative bubbles. We show that they feature nonaffine dynamics in calendar time, while still providing (quasi) closed form term structures and derivative pricing formulas. The framework is illustrated with term structure of interest rates and European call option pricing examples.     

Impact of Financial Education Mandates on Younger Consumers' Use of Alternative Financial Services

Over one‐quarter of American adults used credit‐based alternative financial services (AFS) in the past five years, which carry a typical APR of 300%. Young adults are especially more likely to use AFS yet are also more likely to be exposed to personal finance education in schools. In this study, I use data from pooled 2012 and 2015 waves of National Financial Capability Study to examine whether state‐mandated financial education impacts young adults' use of AFS. I find that financial education mandates significantly reduced the likelihood and frequency of payday borrowing in particular. Additionally, I show that exposure to required personal finance courses could affect payday borrowing through increased financial literacy and improved financial planning practices. These findings suggest that policymakers and other stakeholders need to understand the full benefits of financial education when making cost–benefit analysis comparisons as to whether or not to implement.     

Bank lending,misleading signals,and the latin american debt crisis

This article explores the microfoundations of bank and borrower behavior in the Latin American debt crisis. In the model developed, less developed countries attract loans by signaling their ability and willingness to pay. Some of the signals are “coercive” because they indicate that if income targets are not met, income will be redistributed in order to honor debt obligations. Implicit in such coercive signaling is the borrower's expectation that redistribution will not damage economic productivity. A coercive signal is misleading when feedback effects on social stability and work effort—and thus on the ability to pay—are underestimated or ignored; in this case, it inaccurately predicts repayment prospects. We estimate two equations: (1) private lending to Latin borrowers as a function of our specified signals, and (2) the probability of payments problem as a function of the same set of signals. The results support our borrowing model: coercive signals do enhance lending, and at least one of these signals is misleading.