Technical paper/Value-at-risk (VAR)
The maturity effect on credit risk capital
In a mark-to-market approach to credit risk capital, ratings or spread volatility has the effect of making longer-maturity loans more capital-intensive. This is incorporated in the current Basel II proposals via a maturity adjustment factor. Arguing that…
Testing assumptions
In calculating value-at-risk forecasts for trading portfolios, distributional assumptions are asimportant as the choice of risk factors, but it is not easy to determine the source of errorwhen rejected forecasts occur. Here, Jeremy Berkowitz develops a…
Honour your contribution
What is the best method for determining the risk contribution of a component in a portfolio? An exploration of the pros and cons of three important methods, showing that none dominates the others.
Analytical approach to credit risk modelling
The increasing popularity of VAR-based credit portfolio risk models has led to a growing recognition that Monte Carlo techniques are inadequate for economic capital calculations. Here, Michael Pykhtin and Ashish Dev present a new analytical alternative…
Style-based value-at-risk for UK equities
Risk measures
VAR: who contributes and how much?
Portfolio risk management
Bound to rebalance
Investment management
Stress tests and risk capital
For many financial institutions, "stress tests" are an important input into processes that set risk capital allocations. In the current regulatory environment, two distinct model-based approaches for setting regulatory capital requirements include stress…
Beyond the lognormal
Value-at-risk
The pitfalls of VAR estimates
Value-at-risk
A coherent framework for stress testing
In recent months and years, practitioners and regulators have embraced the idea of supplementing value-at-risk estimates with "stress testing". Risk managers are beginning to place an emphasis and expend resources on developing more and better stress…