Interesting Changes Research Articles

Application of deep reinforcement learning in asset liability management

Asset Liability Management (ALM) is an essential risk management technique in Quantitative Finance and Actuarial Science. It aims to maximise a risk-taker's ability to fulfil future liabilities. ALM is especially critical in environments of elevated interest rate changes, as has been experienced globally between 2021 and 2023. Traditional ALM implementation is still heavily dependent on the judgement of professionals such as Quants, Actuaries or Investment Managers. This over-reliance on human input critically limits ALM performance due to restricted automation, human irrationality and restricted scope for multi-objective optimisation. This paper addressed these limitations by applying Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), which optimises through trial, and error and continuous feedback from the environment. We defined the Reinforcement Learning (RL) components for the ALM application: the RL decision-making Agent, Environment, Actions, States and Reward Functions. The results demonstrated that DRL ALM can achieve duration-matching outcomes within 1% of the theoretical ALM at a 95% confidence level. Furthermore, compared to a benchmark weekly rebalancing traditional ALM regime, DRL ALM achieved superior outcomes of net portfolios which are, on average, 3 times less sensitive to interest rate changes. DRL also allows for increased automation, flexibility, and multi-objective optimisation in ALM, reducing the negative impact of human limitations and improving risk management outcomes. The findings and principles presented in this study apply to various institutional risk-takers, including insurers, banks, pension funds, and asset managers. Overall, DRL ALM provides a promising Artificial Intelligence (AI) avenue for improving risk management outcomes compared to the traditional approaches.

Трансмісійний механізм монетарної політики в контексті забезпечення макроекономічної стабільності

Introduction. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic quickly spread to almost all countries, causing a downturn in the economy and worsening monetary stability. In terms of the scale of its effects, this stress even exceeded the impact of the global financial crisis. It was quite logical to revise the parameters of monetary policy, including lowering (or keeping low) key policy rates, accepting long-term refinancing operations, and reducing the required reserve ratio. All of these measures were intended to stimulate the economy, and the recent practice deserves an examination of how effective the transmission of monetary policy has been. Problem Statement. The implementation of monetary policy in the context of the pandemic is giving rise to new academic discussions about transmission channels, as well as the combination of the general and the particular in the context of countries. The purpose is to examine the transmission mechanism of monetary transmission to achieve the inflation target and ensure sustainable economic growth of the national economy. Methods. General scientific and specific methods of scientific cognition were used. In particular, the study used system analysis to describe models of the monetary policy transmission mechanism; abstract and logical analysis to summarize and build logical links between individual links in the monetary policy transmission mechanism; and statistical and economic analysis to analyze the impact of monetary transmission on inflation under the inflation targeting regime. Methods. System analysis was used to describe models of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy; abstract-logical – for summarizing and building logical connections between separate links of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy; statistical and economic - to analyze the impact of monetary transmission on inflation within the framework of the inflation targeting (IT) regime. Results. Transmission channels are defined as the chain of transmission of the impact from the key policy rate (discount rate) to the next link in the monetary transmission chain. Because of its properties (systematicity, consistency, and microfoundedness), neo-Keynesian logic is well suited to the main macroeconomic models that belong to the class of structural models (including both classical DSGE and semi-structural models). The model used by the National Bank of Ukraine to describe the transmission and build a medium-term forecast of the domestic economy also belongs to the class of structural models. A structural model in the neo-Keynesian logic combines the three most powerful transmission channels - interest rate, exchange rate, and expectations channels. An impulse in the key policy rate is instantly reflected in the 10-day interbank lending rate, and this rate is therefore the NBU's operational target for monetary policy. From the interbank lending rate, the impact of monetary policy is transmitted further to rates in other segments of the money market. Changes in interest rates affect the consumption and investment decisions of economic agents. From market interest rates and financial asset yields, the monetary policy impulse spreads further to lending activity and balance sheet indicators of companies and banks. Changes in the key policy rate affect prices and the value of assets on companies' balance sheets. From the credit sector, the impulse is smoothly transferred to economic activity and inflation. Aggregate demand, expectations, the exchange rate, and producer costs respond to monetary policy. Monetary policy affects expectations and, consequently, inflation by creating an “anchor” for its expected level in the medium term. Conclusions. Achieving the inflation target through the use of the IT regime is an important condition for achieving macroeconomic stability. The NBU's transition to IT was justified, as evidenced by the proven hypothesis of a sharp decline in inflation and price volatility in the medium term. Prices stabilized through the expectations channel. A timely response to the challenges of the pandemic should be accompanied by an easing of monetary policy aimed at reducing the cost of financial resources and restoring long-term lending to the economy. The experience gained enabled the banking system to withstand the next shock - a full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, using proven approaches. Studies have shown that the inflation target of 5% ± 1 p.p., which is optimal from the NBU's point of view, does not affect economic growth. The use of the key policy rate instrument demonstrates a delayed reaction of market participants with a lag of 9-18 months. The regulator focuses on the inflation target and, once it is achieved, on measures to support inflation within the planned target. Resolving the dilemma between the planned inflation rates and maintaining economic growth requires regulatory changes to the laws governing the central bank.

The effects of countercyclical interest rates: Evidence from the classical gold standard

We estimate the impact of countercyclical interest rates on macroeconomic outcomes in open economies. To identify countercyclical interest rates, we construct a new database of short-term interest rates, principal exports, and commodity prices for 40 economies from 1870–1913. Specialization and trade integration subjected economies to a “commodity lottery” in the form of price fluctuations in world markets. Capital mobility and a currency peg exposed them to interest-rate movements originating in the U.K., the largest economy and linchpin of the classical gold standard. We use these two exogenous shocks to identify positive effects of commodity-export prices on real GDP and the domestic price level and negative effects of exogenous changes in short-term interest rates on the same variables. We show that countercyclical interest rates, defined relative to export-price shocks, stabilized both output and the domestic price level. This stabilization was more effective for the price level than for output.

Exploring the market risk profiles of US and European stock insurers

AbstractMarket risks account for an integral part of insurers' risk profiles. We explore market risk sensitivities of insurers in the United States and Europe. Based on panel regression models and daily market data from 2012 to 2018, we find that sensitivities are particularly driven by insurers' product portfolio. The influence of interest rate movements on stock returns is 60% larger for US than for European life insurers. For the former, interest rate risk is a dominant market risk with an effect that is five times larger than through corporate credit risk. For European life insurers, the sensitivity to interest rate changes is only 44% larger than toward credit default swap of government bonds, underlining the relevance of sovereign credit risk.

Measuring Interest Rate Risk Management by Financial Institutions

Financial intermediaries manage myriad interest rate risk exposures. We propose a new method to measure financial intermediaries' residual interest rate risk using high-frequency financial market data. Our method exploits all available high-frequency information and is valid under extremely weak assumptions. Applying the method to U.S. life insurers, we find their interest rate risk management strategies are generally effective. However, life insurers are more sensitive to changes in long-term interest rates than property and casualty insurers. We show that the term premium helps to explain the difference in sensitivities between the two types of insurer.

THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC TRENDS ON BANK PROFITABILITY – THE CASE OF SERBIA AND CROATIA

This paper analyses the direction and intensity of the impact of economic trends on the profitability of banks in Serbia and Croatia in the period between the years 2006 and 2021. This paper aims to determine which indicators of economic trends have the most substantial impact on the profitability of banks in the selected countries. As key indicators of economic trends, GDP per capita, the GDP growth rate, inflation rate, real interest rate, broad money growth, general government final consumption expenditure, current account balance, gross savings, trade, and unemployment are selected as independent variables. At the same time, bank profitability was measured with bank return on equity, in percentages (ROE), and bank return on assets, in percentages (ROA) – two indicators which represent the dependent variables selected for this research. Descriptive analysis, mean difference, correlation, and univariate and multivariate regression were used in the research. Research results show that changes in real interest rates and unemployment have a significant impact on the profitability of banks in both of the selected countries, while changes in GDP per capita growth have a statistically significant effect only in Serbia, and general government final consumption expenditure has a statistically significant impact only in Croatia. The influence of other indicators of economic trends is not statistically significant.

Classification of RBA monetary policy announcements using ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a tool that has gained much attention and has accelerated the adoption of Artificial Intelligence across many applications. Using monetary policy decisions made by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), we test whether ChatGPT's classifications of monetary policy announcements are consistent with market-observed characteristics, whether this has changed with the update from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4, and whether this provides additional informativeness for changes in the yield implied by interest rate futures. Our results indicate that, regardless of statement readability, ChatGPT provides a classification of hawkish / dovish tone that is consistent with “Target Surprises” and “Path Surprises” and although it seems to improve in the latest version has more difficulty with “sentiment” classification. However, this information does not appear to help to explain changes in interest rate markets on the day of the policy announcement.

Interest Rate Skewness and Biased Beliefs

ABSTRACTConditional skewness of Treasury yields is an important indicator of the risks to the macroeconomic outlook. Positive skewness signals upside risk to interest rates during periods of accommodative monetary policy and an upward‐sloping yield curve, and vice versa. Skewness has substantial predictive power for future bond excess returns, high‐frequency interest rate changes around Federal Open Market Committee announcements, and survey forecast errors for interest rates. The estimated expectational errors, or biases in beliefs, are quantitatively important for statistical bond risk premia. These findings are consistent with a heterogeneous‐beliefs model in which one of the agents is wrong about consumption growth.

Banks’ net interest rate spread and the transmission of monetary policy in Korea

In the transmission of monetary policy, banks’ administered interest rates set by their market power may not coordinate well with the policy intention. In this study, we examine the effect of banks’ net interest rate spread (NIS) on real economic growth in response to changes in the benchmark interest rate in Korea. We find that the market power component of the NIS interacting with the benchmark rate significantly affects the prediction of future economic growth, especially under loosening monetary policy. Our findings indicate that when the policy interest rate decreases to boost the economy, monopolistic banks widen the NIS by sluggishly adjusting the lending rate, which dampens the growth effect. This misalignment remains consistent when we focus on the subperiod after the 2008 financial crisis and use alternative measures for our main variables.

Research on the Measurement of Central Bank Communication Index and its Impact on the Macroeconomy

With the increasing size of financial assets and the complexity of monetary patterns, countries around the world are gradually becoming more transparent in their monetary policies, using central bank monetary policy communication as a new type of monetary policy instrument. To measure central bank communication more accurately, this paper proposes a dynamic topic model, LDA-BP, based on branching processes, to construct the central bank communication index. At the same time, this paper does four things: it uses the constructed communication index as a proxy variable for the new monetary policy instrument; it builds a TVP-FAVAR model that can extract potential macroeconomic information from many variables, and its time-varying nature can better reflect the dynamic regulatory effect of monetary policy; it constructs a three-dimensional impulse response diagram; and it conducts a systematic analysis of macroeconomic impact. The experimental results of demonstrate its effectiveness on central bank monetary policy communication, as it captures timely information about conventional monetary policy instruments and immediately responds to changes in interest rates and money supply. All three monetary policy instruments are effective in smoothing output volatility, with monetary policy communication having a longer-term impact on the macroeconomy.

Income inequality in terms of a Gini coefficient: a Kaleckian perspective

Abstract This study presents a theoretical framework that connects functional income distribution and personal income distribution from the Kaleckian perspective and investigates the effects of changes in mark-up rate and interest rate on income inequality in terms of the Gini coefficient. The results demonstrate that a rise in the mark-up rate with weak bargaining power of workers raises the Gini coefficient irrespective of a profit-led or wage-led demand regime. The analyses also demonstrate that a decline in the interest rate negatively affects the Gini coefficient if and only if the bargaining power of workers is sufficiently strong.

Analysis on the Currency Policies in Respond to the Economic Recession after COVID-19 in the United States

The March 2020 onset of the COVID-19 recession precipitated an unparalleled fall in economic activity throughout the planet. To combat recessions, central bank policymakers employed various expansionary monetary policies. Through a literature study, the paper focuses on a discussion of the monetary policies adopted by the Federal Reserve of the United States. This paper examines three basic areas of monetary policy: regulatory changes led by the Federal Reserve, interest rate changes, and loan and asset acquisitions or quantitative easing. The study not only provides a full explanation of the adopted policies, but also takes a critical and objective look at the overall currency policies adopted by the Federal Reserve of the United States. Following an economic downturn, the report concludes that the Fed's measures were effective in commencing a period of economic recovery for the nation.

Applications of the Status Quo Bias in Consumer Rationality, Predictive Analytics, and Medicine

The status quo bias is a heuristic that indicates people are more likely to stick with the default option and not willing to make changes even if making the change is more beneficial when they are making choices, and the status quo bias gets more robust when there are more options, or the new choices appear to be more intricate. This heuristic dramatically influences people's behavior while making choices, so its essential to know how it modifies people's choice-making strategy in different markets to eliminate possible errors and make more precise predictions. Based on previous research and studies, this article explains the basic concept of status quo bias and discusses three applications of status quo bias in three different fields. The first application discusses the connection between consumer rationality and the status quo, which indicates that knowing the effect of the status quo helps companies to know better the consumers' willingness to switch to alternative options. The second application indicates that the status quo bias makes people underestimate the interest rate change in bond markets. Finally, the third application shows that the status quo bias helps the governments to enact better policies to encourage more organ donors.

Unusual Changes in the U.S. Treasury Security Market During the Fourth Round of Quantitative Easing

Abstract The Covid-19 Pandemic and policy response rattled the US Treasury markets. Conventional US Treasuries, inflation adjusted US Treasuries, and the relationship between the two developed in ways such that ignoring changes in real interest rates yielded distorted inflation expectations estimates. Since the beginning of the pandemic, monetary policy kept nominal rates low and close to zero, but positive. Real rates, on the other hand, became increasingly negative. The relationship between the two market rates became negatively correlated, and distorted because of the fourth round of quantitative easing, along with the Fed preventing nominal yields from turning negative. Federal Reserve actions during the Covid-19 pandemic drove a larger wedge between nominal interest rates and real interest rates in the inflation adjusted market.

Financial markets, inflation and growth: The impact of monetary policy under different political structures

This study assesses the likely effects of different political structures on economic growth by the effects of interest rate on the linkage between financial markets. For this aim, we chose two developing economies with different governance structures, Iran and Argentina. There is a political structure in Iran influenced by religion, whereas Argentina’s political structure does not deal with religion. We first assess the causality amongst the financial markets of the stock market, bank deposits, and the foreign currency market (CM). Then, the effects of the markets and inflation on economic growth are assessed using Granger-causality tests and Markov-switching models. The results show that there are bidirectional causalities between the financial markets in Iran, and unidirectional causalities in Argentina. The markets affect economic growth in the both countries. For Iran, the monetary policy instrument of interest rate indicates no causalities to the markets, whereas there are strong causalities from interest rate to the markets in Argentina. As a result, Argentinian Central Bank can affect economic growth through the money flow between the markets by freely changing interest rate proportioned with the economic situation. Whereas there is no such a possibility for Iran’s Central Bank. In other words, an active Central bank against the inflation volatility in Argentina versus a passive Central Bank in Iran is one of the consequences of the interest rate repression in a political structure influenced by religion.

Kebijakan Lindung Nilai (Hedging) pada Perusahaan untuk Menjamin Kinerja Perusahaan

Risk fluctuations, including such changes in interest rates, exchange rates, and commodity prices, have a negative impact on business performance and can be mitigated by hedging. Derivative instruments are the preferred method for hedging. Internal hedging calculations take into account size, growth prospects, financial distress, leverage, and liquidity. This study's goal is to examine the variables that influence the hedging decisions of businesses. This study employs a descriptive qualitative methodology. The most influential factors in determining a company's hedging strategy are its size and growth prospects, according to the research. The greatest effect comes from the company's size and growth potential in order to influence the company's hedging policies. Other factors such as leverage, liquidity, financial distress, market depth risk are not so dominant in influencing the company's hedging decisions. However, several variables or factors that are not the dominant factor will be important according to the industry or line of business of each company.Recommendations for further research can be carried out by analyzing the company's external factors that influence hedging decisions.

Business cycle accounting: What have we learned so far?

AbstractWhat drives recessions and expansions? Since it was introduced in 2007, there have been hundreds of business cycle accounting (BCA) exercises, a procedure aimed at identifying classes of models that hold quantitative promise to explain economic fluctuations. This paper contributes with a software—a graphical user interface that allows practitioners to perform BCA exercises with minimal effort—and exemplifies the procedure by studying the U.S. recessions in 1973 and 1990 and reflecting upon the critiques BCA has been subject to. We look into the many equivalence theorems that the literature has produced and that allow BCA practitioners to identify the theories that are quantitatively relevant for the economic period under study. The methodological extensions that have been brought forth since BCA's original inception are addressed as well as conclusions regarding the relative contribution of each wedge: GDP and investment are usually driven by an efficiency wedge, hours worked are closely related to the labor wedge and, in an open economy extension, the investment wedge helps to explain country risk spreads on international bonds. Finally, larger changes in interest rates and currency crises are usually associated with the investment and/or the labor wedge.

INTEREST RATES IN INDONESIAN BANKS' ASYMMETRIC BEHAVIOR AND DEGREE OF PASSTHROUGH

Interest rate changes result in a trade-off between reducing inflation and capital inflows. Capital inflow will reduce money market interest rates as low as possible, followed by lower lending and deposit rates. On the other hand, it is difficult to lower the benchmark interest rate due to inflation pressure. The asymmetric movement of lending and deposit interest rates to the benchmark interest rate has caused disturbances to the monetary transmission mechanism. The results of the estimated error-correction model for variable lending rates found that the long-term passthrough of Indonesian banks was significant but could have been better on interest rates on working capital loans and investment loans. This study shows an asymmetrical behavior in banking interest rates in Indonesia. The passthrough degree is typically slow when there is a decrease in the benchmark interest rate.

Interelasi indeks pasar sektoral dalam kondisi tingkat bunga tertinggi

Interest rate policy is an important factor for controlling the inflation rate as well as controlling economic growth. The objectives of this study are: first, to examine the relationship between interest rates and market indexes; second, the interrelationship of market indexes during interest rate issues. The sample of this study is 12 market indexes during the observed period 24 October 2022 to 28 April 2023. This study finds that several market indices experienced an increase and several market indices also experienced a decrease when interest rates were at their highest levels. Other important findings also show that changes in interest rates tend not to have a significant impact on market indices, especially during the observation period of this study. Throughout the observation period, consistently, this study finds that the non-primary consumer goods sector consistently did not correlate with the health sector, the financial sector consistently did not correlate with the health sector, and the health sector consistently did not correlate with the technology sector.

Pengembalian saham sektor perbankan dalam isu inflasi dan suku bunga

Information on changes in inflation and interest rates is one of the issues that tend to influence investment decisions in the Indonesian capital market. This study observes from 1 February 2023 to 30 April 2023 at 47 firms in the banking sector. This study finds that the performance of stock returns on risk from the banking sector as a whole has not reached an optimal level. Specifically, the evidence also shows that there is a tendency for returns to decline from February to April 2023 as the inflation rate declines. The findings of this study also imply that a decrease in returns also occurs at a fixed interest rate. In addition, this study also finds that even though there is a decrease in returns but the difference of the value between periods are insignificant.