Contingent Claims Analysis Research Articles

Insurer green financing for a supply chain under cap-and-trade regulation: a capped call contingent claim analysis

Insurer green financing for a supply chain under cap-and-trade regulation: a capped call contingent claim analysis

Contingent claim analysis and Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis

Contingent claim analysis and Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis

Transmission of risk to China's construction industry due to international interest rate fluctuations

PurposeUnder the trend of global economic integration and the new context of stagflation, frequent fluctuations in international interest rates are exerting far-reaching impacts on the world economy. In this paper, the transmission mechanism of the impact of fluctuations in international interest rates (specifically, the American interest rate) on the bankruptcy risk in China's pillar industry, the construction industry (which is also sensitive to interest rates), is examined.Design/methodology/approachUsing an improved contingent claims analysis, the bankruptcy risk of enterprises is calculated in this paper. Additionally, an individual fixed-effects model is developed to investigate the mediating effects of international interest rates on the bankruptcy risk in the Chinese construction industry. The heterogeneity of subindustries in the industrial chain and the impact of China's energy consumption structure are also analysed in this paper.FindingsThe findings show that fluctuations in international interest rates, which affect the bankruptcy risk of China's construction industry, are mainly transmitted through two major pathways, namely, commodity price effects and exchange rate effects. In addition, the authors examine the important impact of China's energy consumption structure on risk transmission and assess the transmission and sharing of risks within the industrial chain.Originality/valueFirst, in the research field, the study of international interest rate risk is extended to domestic-oriented industries. Second, in terms of the research content, this paper is focused on China-specific issues, including the significant influence of China's energy consumption structure characteristics and the risk contagion (and risk sharing) as determined by the current development of the Chinese construction industry. Third, in terms of research methods a modified contingent claim analysis approach to bankruptcy risk indicators is adopted for this study, thus overcoming the problems of data frequency, market sentiment and financial data fraud, which are issues that are ignored by most relevant studies.

Importance of the Contingent Claims Analysis in Detecting Banking Risks: Evidence from the Greek Bank Crisis

Abstract In this paper we apply the Contingent Claims Analysis (CCA) to the banking sector in Greece with a particular focus on the years of the Greek debt crisis. Greece was selected primarily because its banking sector was hit hard due to the country’s government debt default and its large exposure to domestic loans. The results obtained on the SIB’s level and on the banking sector level gave us particular insight into the benefits of CCA for micro- and macroprudential policy reasons. The Distance-to-Distress (DtD) risk metric produced is particularly useful for detecting banks’ vulnerabilities and resilience before they are revealed in the market. Moreover, the reduced volatility of DtD time series makes it an ideal candidate for tool predictions purposes and ultimately for policy reasons.

A Study on How International Portfolio Investment Flows Affect Macrofinancial Risks and Control Channels

In the current complex global economic background, international capital flows are becoming more frequent. Based on this, this paper takes international portfolio investment as the research object and empirically tests the causal relationship and control channel between international portfolio flows and macrofinancial risk in emerging economies. It selects the panel data of emerging economies from 2001 to 2020, constructs macrofinancial risk indicators by using contingent claim analysis and the entropy-based TOPSIS method, tests the effect of international portfolio flows on macrofinancial risk by using the panel distributed lag regression model, and explores the management effect of foreign exchange reserves and capital controls on the risk effect by using the panel threshold regression model. The results show that long-term international portfolio flows help reduce macrofinancial risk, but short-term capital flows appear to increase macrofinancial risk. In addition, both foreign exchange reserves and capital controls effectively reduce the risk effect of portfolio flows. However, when considering different types of portfolios, we find that foreign exchange reserves do not effectively control the risk effect of equity securities flows, while stricter capital controls do. This paper argues that emerging economies should be more open to international long-term portfolio flows, focus on the monitoring of short-term portfolio capital flows and equity securities flows, and coordinate the use of foreign exchange reserves and capital control instruments to manage the risk effects of portfolio flows. This paper verifies the risk effect of international portfolio investment flows through empirical analysis, tests the effectiveness of foreign exchange reserves and capital controls, and provides a decision-making reference for emerging economies to timely identify, effectively manage, and prevent the risk effect of international capital flows.

Contingent claims analysis as a credit risk metric: Evidence from Turkey

Credit ratings have become open to dispute in recent years regarding their objectivity, timeliness, and the criteria considered in the assignment process, which resulted in an inclination toward other methods to measure credit risk. This study applies contingent claims analysis, a novel risk analysis technique, in Turkey to assess their credit risk appropriately and investigate the determinants of the sovereign credit risk correctly. While the technique has been applied in Turkey before, the study contributes to the results of the preceding literature by applying the technique at a wider spectrum in terms of regarding the assessed risk indicators, time horizon considered, diagnosis tests, and sensitivity analyses. Risk indicators are calculated by applying this method to Turkey between July 2009 and December 2020. Results highlight that the movements in the risk indicators reflect the market. To ensure robustness, the Spearman rank-order correlations of the model risk measures with three market indicators are calculated, and sensitivity analyses are done. The credit default swaps are found to be correlated with all of the model risk measures, while the distance to distress is correlated with sovereign bond spreads, affirming model robustness. Analysis results highlight that among the variables for which sensitivities are assessed, changes occurring in the volatility of local currency liabilities heavily impact the risk indicators. Hence, the contingent claims approach model is robust in considering the correlations of model risk indicators with actual market data. Therefore, the model can be used in policymaking for realistic results.

The Impact of Banking Competition on Firm Credit Risk and Leverage

A firm’s default risk is closely related to its macrofinancial stability. As financial reform deepens, banking competition may ease firms’ credit constraints, encouraging them to increase their leverage and default risks. This study uses contingent claims analysis to examine firms’ asset–liability ratio and default distance. We find that companies have low leverage and low overall default risks. Moreover, a pro-cyclical effect exists between leverage and economic growth. As banking competition becomes more intense, the default risk decreases, but firms’ leverage ratio rises significantly. The impact is more prominent for highly leveraged firms. Our findings also indicate that utilizing the contingent claims analysis method to measure firms’ leverage and default risks provides more accurate results. Moreover, we provide empirical evidence of the impact of banking competition on firms’ leverage and credit risks. The results suggest that enhancing financial competition has a positive effect on easing credit constraints and reducing default risks.

Measuring Sovereign Credit Risk of the EU countries

Abstract European countries have increased significantly their public debt since the Global Financial Crisis. The increasing trend and the high concentration of public debt in portfolios of financial institutions can lead to a financial turmoil we witnessed during the European Sovereign Debt Crisis. Financial stability authorities therefore look for models to measure the sovereign credit risk and develop“what-if”scenarios to assess a potential repercussion of a financial institution rescue or of an economic contraction on sovereign credit risk. The presented article introduces adjustments to the sovereign contingent claims analysis that is based on the Merton´s Credit Risk Model and the Black-Scholes option pricing techniques. The article proposes adjustments by introducing a new view on a stylised liability side of a central government balance sheet, seniority of its items, and a new proxy for risk measure of junior claims. We show reliable results using derived risk sensitivities for 20 EU countries with decent forward looking ability and propose potential stress-testing framework with an application for the Czech Republic.

A Comprehensive Approach for Calculating Banking Sector Risks

We propose a comprehensive approach for the analysis of real economy and government sector risk transmission to the banking system and apply it in ten Euro-Area countries from 2005 to 2017. A flexible methodology is developed to model banks’ assets according to the risk-adjusted balance sheet of the counterparts. The use of distance to distress as a popular risk metric shows that Contingent Claims Analysis underestimates banks risk in stable periods and overstates it during crisis. Furthermore, the approach succeeds in detecting spillovers from households, non-financial corporations and sovereign sectors: for the countries examined the main source of instability comes from the Non-Financial Corporation sector and its increased assets volatility.

Robert C. Merton and the Science of Finance

Starting with his 1970 doctoral dissertation and continuing to today, Robert C. Merton has revolutionized the theory and practice of finance. In 1997, Merton shared a Nobel Prize in Economics “for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.” His contributions to the science of finance, however, go far beyond that. In this article I describe Merton's main contributions. They include the following: 1. The introduction of continuous-time stochastic models (the Ito calculus) to the theory of household consumption and investment decisions. Merton's technique of dynamic hedging in continuous time provided a bridge between the theoretical complete-markets equilibrium model of Kenneth Arrow and the real world of personal financial planning and management. 2. The derivation of the multifactor Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM). The ICAPM generalizes the single-factor CAPM and explains why that model might fail to properly account for observed market excess returns. It also provides a theory to identify potential forward-looking risk premia for use in factor-based investment strategies. It is therefore both a positive and normative theory. 3. The invention of Contingent Claims Analysis (CCA) as a generalization of option pricing theory. CCA applies the technique of dynamic replication to the valuation and risk management of a wide range of corporate and government liabilities. Merton's CCA model for the valuation and analysis of risky debt is known among scholars and practitioners alike as the Merton Model. 4. The development of financial engineering, which employs CCA to design and produce new financial products. Merton was the first to apply CCA to analyze government guaranty programs such as deposit insurance, and to suggest improvements in the way those programs are managed. He and his students have applied his insights at both the micro and macro policy levels. 5. And finally, the development of a theory of financial intermediation that explains and predicts how financial systems differ across countries and change over time. Merton has applied that theory, called functional and structural finance, to guide the design and regulation of financial systems at the levels of the firm, the industry, and the nation. He has also used it to propose reforms in pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and macrostabilization policy. This article is one of a pair of articles published in this volume about Robert C. Merton's contributions to the science of financial economics. This article was originally published in Volume 11 of the Annual Review of Financial Economics. The other article in this pair is “ Robert C. Merton: The First Financial Engineer ” by Andrew W. Lo.

Construction and Empirical Research on the Dynamic Provisioning Model of China’s Banking Sector under the Macro-Prudential Framework

Since the international financial crisis in 2008, to achieve the political goal of financial stability, academic circles, financial industry, and regulatory authorities worldwide have deeply reflected on the current economic regulatory theories and policy adjustment tools through introducing the macroprudential policy. The dynamic provisioning system is a counter-cyclical policy tool in the macro-prudential adjustment framework widely used in the world. This paper uses the binary Gaussian Copula function to combine the measurement method of the default distance in the contingent claims analysis method with the risk warning idea based on the Probit model and proposes the contingent claims analysis (CCA)–Probit–Copula dynamic provisioning model based on nine forward-looking indicators. Based on China’s actual conditions, this model solves present problems faced by the current dynamic provisioning system in China, such as insufficient historical credit data reserves of commercial banks, excessive reliance on subjective judgments, and conflicts with the current accounting system. Moreover, this model can put forward corresponding counter-cyclical provisioning requirements according to the influence degree of macro-cyclical factors to different commercial banks’ own default risk, which not only takes into account the security and liquidity of commercial banks, but also ensures their profitability and competitiveness. Based on the empirical test of historical data from listed commercial banks in China, it proves that the dynamic provisioning requirements proposed in this model can effectively adjust the overall credit scale of the banking industry in counter-cyclical ways, thereby achieving the policy goals of counter-cyclical adjustment under the macro-prudential framework and maintaining the security of China’s financial system and the sustainable development of the macroeconomy.

Levelling the playing field: A VIX-linked structure for funded pension schemes

In this article, we study intergenerational risk and cost sharing for a variety of collective funded pension plans. Inspired by the literature on contingent claim analysis in pension insurance, we derive time-varying contribution and benefit levels. The latter specifically include the fund surplus, which accounts for (intergenerational) risk sharing, and the VIX, which is related to cost sharing among generations. We find that pension schemes with a well-structured volatility-risk-adjusted component can be welfare enhancing for the entry and future cohorts. In addition, these schemes are fair from an ex ante perspective, provide adequate consumption profiles and high levels of satisfaction.

Banking network structure and transnational systemic risk contagion—The case of the European Union

This paper combines systemic contingent claims analysis with the conditional value-at-risk to construct a financial risk network, thereby providing a new method to measure the cross-risk of the banking sector among different countries. We apply this to a sample of listed banks in the European Union over the period 2007–2018. And we find that systemic risk is caused by the inherent and cross- risk. Cross- risk among countries is the dominant factor affecting systemic risk during the crisis period. In addition, the influence mechanism of risk network on the cross-risk exhibits asymmetry and displays the characteristic of “robust-yet-fragile”.

Valuation of Natural Resources

This article reviews the most important studies related to the problem of valuing investments on natural resources. We first consider some of the models developed in economics and then we focus on the most recent models which are based on a private evaluation perspective. Using the contingent claims analysis, the models are built on financial principles under uncertainty conditions.

Robert C. Merton and the Science of Finance

Starting with his 1970 doctoral dissertation and continuing to today, Robert C. Merton has revolutionized the theory and practice of finance. In 1997, Merton shared a Nobel Prize in Economics “for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.” His contributions to the science of finance, however, go far beyond that. In this article I describe Merton's main contributions. They include the following: 1. The introduction of continuous-time stochastic models (the Ito calculus) to the theory of household consumption and investment decisions. Merton's technique of dynamic hedging in continuous time provided a bridge between the theoretical complete-markets equilibrium model of Kenneth Arrow and the real world of personal financial planning and management. 2. The derivation of the multifactor Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM). The ICAPM generalizes the single-factor CAPM and explains why that model might fail to properly account for observed market excess returns. It also provides a theory to identify potential forward-looking risk premia for use in factor-based investment strategies. It is therefore both a positive and normative theory. 3. The invention of Contingent Claims Analysis (CCA) as a generalization of option pricing theory. CCA applies the technique of dynamic replication to the valuation and risk management of a wide range of corporate and government liabilities. Merton's CCA model for the valuation and analysis of risky debt is known among scholars and practitioners alike as the Merton Model. 4. The development of financial engineering, which employs CCA to design and produce new financial products. Merton was the first to apply CCA to analyze government guaranty programs such as deposit insurance, and to suggest improvements in the way those programs are managed. He and his students have applied his insights at both the micro and macro policy levels. 5. And finally, the development of a theory of financial intermediation that explains and predicts how financial systems differ across countries and change over time. Merton has applied that theory, called functional and structural finance, to guide the design and regulation of financial systems at the levels of the firm, the industry, and the nation. He has also used it to propose reforms in pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and macrostabilization policy.

Robert C. Merton and the Science of Finance

Starting with his 1970 doctoral dissertation and continuing to today, Robert C. Merton has revolutionized the theory and practice of finance. In 1997, Merton shared a Nobel Prize in Economics “for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.” His contributions to the science of finance, however, go far beyond that. In this article I describe Merton's main contributions. They include the following: 1. The introduction of continuous-time stochastic models (the Ito calculus) to the theory of household consumption and investment decisions. Merton's technique of dynamic hedging in continuous time provided a bridge between the theoretical complete-markets equilibrium model of Kenneth Arrow and the real world of personal financial planning and management. 2. The derivation of the multifactor Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM). The ICAPM generalizes the single-factor CAPM and explains why that model might fail to properly account for observed market excess returns. It also provides a theory to identify potential forward-looking risk premia for use in factor-based investment strategies. It is therefore both a positive and normative theory. 3. The invention of Contingent Claims Analysis (CCA) as a generalization of option pricing theory. CCA applies the technique of dynamic replication to the valuation and risk management of a wide range of corporate and government liabilities. Merton's CCA model for the valuation and analysis of risky debt is known among scholars and practitioners alike as the Merton Model. 4. The development of financial engineering, which employs CCA to design and produce new financial products. Merton was the first to apply CCA to analyze government guaranty programs such as deposit insurance, and to suggest improvements in the way those programs are managed. He and his students have applied his insights at both the micro and macro policy levels. 5. And finally, the development of a theory of financial intermediation that explains and predicts how financial systems differ across countries and change over time. Merton has applied that theory, called functional and structural finance, to guide the design and regulation of financial systems at the levels of the firm, the industry, and the nation. He has also used it to propose reforms in pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and macrostabilization policy. This article is one of a pair of articles published in this volume about Robert C. Merton's contributions to the science of financial economics. This article was originally published in Volume 11 of the Annual Review of Financial Economics. The other article in this pair is “Robert C. Merton: The First Financial Engineer” by Andrew W. Lo.

The impact of China’s Internet Finance on the banking systemic risk – an empirical study based on the SCCA model and stepwise regression

ABSTRACTThe disorderly development of Internet Finance impacts both the banking industry and the macroeconomy and opens a risk contagion channel, which easily generates the banking systemic risk. Based on current banking systemic risk measured by Systemic Contingent Claims Analysis (SCCA) model and a stepwise regression, we verify the impacts of China’s Internet Finance on the banking industry and predict that the risk will rise in the future.

The sovereign-bank nexus in peripheral euro area: Further evidence from contingent claims analysis

New evidence is presented on the nexus between the sovereign and banking sector risk. Applying the contingent claims methodology to the peripheral euro area countries over the 2004Q4-2013Q2 period, we build indicators of sovereign and bank risk and assess their interconnection in comparison with existing market-based indicators of bank and sovereign distress. We use three different statistical measures of interdependence based on principal components analysis, Granger causality framework and Diebold-Yilmaz’s connectedness index. The empirical results show strong interconnection and co-movement between country-level banking and sovereign risk indicators. We also find evidence of bi-directional bank-sovereign causal linkages only for Spain during the European sovereign debt crisis period. For the late crisis period, we detect weak interrelationship and more divergence across the various risk indicators. Our findings indicate that secondary and derivatives market indices are more driven by common underlying factors than are contingent claim based risk measures. Finally, our results also suggest that market participants risk appetite was the main channel of risk transmission between sovereigns and banks for the countries under study during the sample period.

Market-Implied Systemic Risk and Shadow Capital Adequacy

This paper presents a forward-looking approach to measure systemic solvency risk using contingent claims analysis (CCA) as a theoretical foundation for determining an institution’s default risk based on the uncertainty in its asset value relative to promised debt payments over time. Default risk can be quantified as market-implied expected losses calculated from integrating equity market and balance sheet information in a structural default risk model. The expected losses of multiple banks and their non-parametric dependence structure define a multivariate distribution that generates portfolio-based estimates of the joint default risk using the aggregation technique of the Systemic CCA framework (Jobst and Gray, 2013). This market-implied valuation approach (‘shadow capital adequacy’) endogenises bank solvency as a probabilistic concept based on the perceived default risk (in contrast to accounting-based prudential measures of capital adequacy). The presented model adds to the literature of analytical tools estimating market-implied systemic risk by augmenting the CCA approach with a jump diffusion process of asset changes to inform a more comprehensive and flexible assessment of common vulnerabilities to tail risks of the four largest UK commercial banks.

Examining the influence of moral suasion on sovereign debt default risk

In this paper, we verify whether moral suasion will reduce sovereign debt default risk. We specify the effect of portfolio home bias toward domestic assets on sovereign debt default by using the dynamic panel data model, which can be used to control for common global factors and country factors with fundamentals. In contrast to other studies, we use the Merton model (contingent claims analysis) to calculate the sovereign default risk because this constructed-indicator can reflect variations in credit risk and the market value of the balance sheet of a country. Our empirical results point out that periphery countries (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, or GIIPS) indeed reduce sovereign debt default risk via portfolio home bias toward domestic equity and bonds. Core countries tend to reduce sovereign debt default risk via home sovereign bond holdings. However, in the aftermath of sovereign debt default, moral suasion will increase sovereign debt default risk in periphery countries.