Central banks

Factoring in stock options

In the wake of recent corporate scandals, support has spread rapidly for including the cost of employee stock options as an expense item in corporate income statements. David Rowe argues that while some reform is appropriate, present trends could end up…

Learning the lessons

Risk’s quarterly round-up of corporate risk revelations shows that increasing shareholder and regulator expectations in the wake of US accounting scandals are having some effect on corporate disclosure, but companies still complain about losses from…

Pricing debate bedevils employee option accounting

US corporates are lining up to advertise their virtue by being the latest to account for their employee stock options as an expense. But with no consensus on how to price these instruments, will it bring more clarity or confusion?

Correlation and credit risk

Active development of full credit portfolio modelling continues apace, even though it is not recognised in the proposed Basel II framework.

Greenspan defends Fed’s role in tech bubble

The US Federal Reserve’s chairman, Alan Greenspan, claimed that it is far from obvious that a bubble, even if identified early, can be pre-empted by a central bank without inducing a substantial contraction in the economy, but conceded that better models…