Liquidity Risk Measures Research Articles

Bank liquidity risk management: A South African survey to determine future change

In 2008 the global financial system and, more particularly, the world banking system suffered a financial crisis worse than any earlier crises. The financial crunch brought to light that liquidity risk management in banks poses a problem, and that the world’s financial institutions will have to change their current practices as it relates to this risk. Apart from the importance of liquidity and the risk that it may cause, the integrated nature of all risks made banks more aware of the fact that none of these risks can be managed in isolation. For various reasons, South African banks were not as exposed to the problems experienced in the global context. However, SA banks may have learned new lessons from the crisis and may plan to change the way they manage liquidity risk in particular, in the future. In order to determine how SA banks perceive liquidity management and liquidity risk, a survey of all SA banks was carried out. The majority of respondents indicated that the financial crisis reminded them of the importance of liquidity risk management in the South African banking system as well as the global banking system. The majority of banks rate all the liquidity risk management tools as extremely important and rate corporate governance, strategy, policy and risk tolerance, liquidity risk measurement and intra-day liquidity as their number one priority. Basel III is generally perceived as being effective, but 30% of respondents perceived it as neither effective nor ineffective, because South African banks already have similar measures in place.

Global liquidity risk in the foreign exchange market

Using a broad data set of 20 US dollar exchange rates and order flow of institutional investors over 14 years, we construct a measure of global liquidity risk in the foreign exchange (FX) market. Our FX liquidity measure may be seen as the analog of the well-known Pastor–Stambaugh liquidity measure for the US stock market. We show that this measure has reasonable properties, and that there is a strong common component in liquidity across currencies. Finally, we provide evidence that liquidity risk is priced in the cross-section of currency returns, and estimate the liquidity risk premium in the FX market around 4.7 percent per annum.

A Measure of Liquidity Risk in a Sovereign Debt Market

Since the seminal paper of Vasicek and Fong (1982) term structure models are estimated assuming that yields are cross-sectionally homokedastic. In this paper, we show that this hypothesis does not hold even for bonds from the same issuer when there are differences in their level of liquidity. Those bonds with a lower daily turnover would experiment a higher volatility around the expected yield determined by the term structure. The existence of a minimum tick size on the bond price negotiation would also produce a higher volatility for those bonds approaching their expiration term. In order to show these effects, we use data from Spanish sovereign bonds from 1988 to 2010, covering more than 700 bonds and 5000 days. With these data we have estimated the out-of-sample error for each bond and day. The variance of these errors is negatively correlated with the turnover of each bond and its duration, while the mean of the error is directly correlated with the estimated variance. Taking into account these features we propose, for fitting the term structure, a modified Svensson (1994) yield curve model where an additional liquidity term is added and parameters are estimated by weighted least squared errors to take into account the liquidity-induced heterokedasticity.

Solution Framework for Basel III: Global Liquidity Standard

This paper proposes a solution framework for implementing liquidity framework agreed on by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. This liquidity framework is published by the committee in, “Basel III: International Framework for Liquidity Risk Measurement, Standards and Monitoring.Basel III introduces two global liquidity standards for liquidity risk management. The proposed solution framework aims to evaluate these standards and generate report to guide bank's action during crisis scenarios.

Deal Risk, Liquidity Risk, and the Profitability of Risk Arbitrage

Previous research documents that risk-arbitrageurs earn positive abnormal returns. However, this research treats the sum of two risks, deal risk and liquidity risk, as a measure of deal risk alone. We employ a forward looking measure of liquidity risk – the VIX – and we show that arbitrageurs’ ‘abnormal’ returns are higher when liquidity risk is higher. Thus, observed risk-arbitrage spreads compensate arbitrageurs for liquidity risk and deal failure risk. We conclude that the risk in risk-arbitrage has been systematically underestimated. Finally, we document an interaction between deal risk (a technical risk) and liquidity risk (a market risk) which is consistent with the analysis of real options models.

An Index-Based Measure of Liquidity

The liquidity shocks of '08-'09 revealed that measures of liquidity risk being used in most financial institutions turned out to be woefully inadequate. The construction of long-short portfolios based on liquidity proxies introduces errors such as extraneous risk factors and hedging error. We develop a new measure for liquidity risk using exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that attempts to minimize this error. We form a theoretically-supported measure that is long ETFs and short the underlying components of that ETF, i.e., long and short a similar set of underlying securities with the same weights. Pricing discrepancies between the long and short positions are driven by liquidity differences between the ETF and its underlying components. Constructing theoretically supported liquidity risk factors in a number of markets, we undertake several tests to validate our new liquidity metric. The results show that our illiquidity measure is strongly related to other measures of illiquidity, explains bond index returns, and reveals a systematic illiquidity component across fixed-income markets.

Liquidity risk exposure for specialised and unspecialised real estate banks

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare banks specialised on real estate lending with the overall market in order to the test if they are more or less exposed to liquidity risk.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the approach proposed by the Basel Committee in order to evaluate the bank liquidity exposure, the paper compares the value of these measures between the real estate lending banks (REBs) and all other banks for the Italian market. A panel regression analysis is also performed in order to identify the main drivers of the liquidity risk measures for the two types of banks.FindingsThe paper finds that no significant differences exist between REBs and the overall system if liquidity risk measures used by regulators in order to supervise the banking system are taken into account. Normally liquidity exposure by this type of bank is significantly affected by interbank market dynamics.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper considers only one market in order to test the fitness of the regulatory approach for the REBs and does not take into account the off balance sheet exposure.Practical implicationsEven if REBs suffer from a misalignment between the asset and liability duration, the supervisory authority selects measures that do not penalise them.Originality/valueThe paper represents one of the first empirical analyses on the impact of regulatory requirements for liquidity management by the Basel Committee in order to test if the rules proposed could penalise banks specialised in real estate loans.

Global Liquidity Risk in the Foreign Exchange Market

Using a broad data set of 20 US dollar exchange rates and order flow of institutional investors over 14 years, we construct a measure of global liquidity risk in the foreign exchange (FX) market. Our FX liquidity measure may be seen as the analogue of the well-known Pastor-Stambaugh liquidity measure for the US stock market. We show that this measure has reasonable properties, and that there is a strong common component in liquidity across currencies. Finally, we provide evidence that liquidity risk is priced in the cross-section of currency returns, and estimate the liquidity risk premium in the FX market around 4.7 percent per annum.

The Analysis Of Comments Received By The BIS On Principles For Sound Liquidity Risk Management And Supervision

The market turmoil that began in mid-2007 re-emphasized the importance of liquidity to the functioning of financial markets and the banking sector. In June 2008, the Basel Committee of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a consultative document on Principles for Sound Liquidity Risk Management and Supervision. Interested parties were invited to provide written comments by the end of July 2008. As a result, the Committee received many comments for publication by 30 different commenters. Our analysis first indicates that comments were formulated on each of the 17 principles discussed in the consultative document. Second, comments were also made in each of the five separate defined areas of focus covered by the 17 principles. Third, the results of our analysis reveal that opinions on different principles differed the most when commenters were separated into four distinct categories: banking trade associations, regulatory supervisors, individual financial institutions, and others (consultants, academics, accounting associations, and financial information providers). Last but not least, the results of the study indicate that commenters’ opinions, both within a category and between categories, differed the most in the two following defined areas of focus: measurement and management of liquidity risk and public disclosure of quantitative information on liquidity risk management.

Risk Management

Modern risk management systems were developed in the early 1990s to provide centralized risk measures at the top level of financial institutions. These are based on a century of theoretical developments in risk measures. In particular, value at risk (VAR) has become widely used as a statistical measure of market risk based on current positions. This methodology has been extended to credit risk and operational risk. This article reviews the benefits and limitations of these models. In spite of all these advances, risk methods are poorly adapted to measure liquidity risk and systemic risk.

Analysis And Comments On The Consultative Document: International Framework For Liquidity Risk Measurement, Standards And Monitoring

The market turmoil that began in mid-2007 re-emphasized the importance of liquidity to the functioning of financial markets and the banking sector. In December 2009, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a consultative document entitled: “International Framework for Liquidity Risk Measurement, Standards and Monitoring”. Interested parties were invited to provide written comments by April 16th 2010. Given our interest in promoting sound liquidity risk management and supervision, three members of the Chair responded to the BIS request. Today, we share with you a summary of our analysis and comments. Our work first supports the adoption of the BCBS proposals on two new liquidity risk management standards which take the form of a 30-day minimum liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) combined with a one-year minimum net stable funding ratio (NSFR), both to be accompanied by a mandatory set of market-related monitoring tools. Second, we share with you several general comments and suggestions we formulated on the following topics: the need for better coordination, both domestically and internationally between macro and micro-prudential supervision, the need to formulate more precise liquidity risk requirements on foreign currency funding, the importance and usefulness of public financial disclosure, suggestions on extending the use of market-related monitoring rules and metrics. Third, we also share with you more specific comments and suggestions formulated on the following topics : areas of further work like intra-group and cross border liquidity risk management, selling to gauge market liquidity, clarifying LCR and NSFR definitions, credit rating downgrades, and defining required stable funding categories. Fourth, the results of the analysis support the need to promote a more level business and supervisory playing field for all internationally active banks. Last but not least, we draw the risk-return and financial implications for Canadian banks of the adoption of the BCBS proposals for liquidity risk management and supervision.

Basel III – Responses to Consultative Documents, Vital Aspects of the Consultative Processes and the Journey Culminating in the Present Framework

This paper is aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of, and responses to, four very vital components of the consultative processes which have contributed to the new framework known as Basel III. The paper will approach these components in the order of the consultative processes, namely, the capital proposals, the liquidity proposals and the Proposal to ensure the loss absorbency of regulatory capital at the point of non-viability. The capital proposals comprise proposals aimed at strengthening the resilience of the banking sector, the proposal relating to international framework for liquidity risk measurement, standards and monitoring and, the countercyclical capital buffer proposal. Whilst the capital proposals have been welcomed, there has been growing realisation since the aftermath of the recent Financial Crises that banks which have been complying with capital adequacy requirements could still face severe liquidity problems. As well as highlighting the importance of introducing counter cyclical capital buffers, the response to the countercyclical proposal draws attention to the need for greater focus on more forward looking provisions, as well as provisions which are aimed at addressing losses and unforeseen problems attributed to “maturity transformation of short-term deposits into long term loans.” The Basel Committee’s consultative document on the “Proposal to Ensure the Loss Absorbency of Regulatory Capital at the Point of Non Viability” sets out a proposal aimed at “enhancing the entry criteria of regulatory capital to ensure that all regulatory capital instruments issued by banks are capable of absorbing losses in the event that a bank is unable to support itself in the private market.” Amongst other issues addressed, the response to the consultative document highlights why the controlled winding down procedure also constitutes a means whereby losses could still be absorbed in the event that a bank is unable to support itself in the private market.

Risk Monitoring Tools in Bank Regulation and Supervision – Developments Since the Collapse of Barings Plc.

This paper consolidates the work of its predecessor, “International Framework for Liquidity Risk Measurement, Standards and Monitoring: Corporate Governance and Internal Controls”, by considering monitoring tools which are considered to be essential if risks,(and in particular liquidity risks which are attributed to a bank), are to be managed and measured effectively by its management. It also considers developments which have triggered the need for particular monitoring tools – not only in relation to liquidity risks, but also to the rise of conglomerates and consolidated undertakings. It highlights weaknesses in financial supervision – weaknesses which were revealed following the collapses of Barings and Lehman Brothers. As well as attempting to draw comparisons between the recommendations which were made by the Board of Banking Supervision (BoBS) following Barings’ collapse, and the application issues raised by the Basel Committee in its 2009 Consultative Document, International Framework for Liquidity Risk Measurement, Standards and Monitoring, it highlights the links and relevance between both recommendations. In drawing attention to the significance of corporate governance, audit committees, and supervisory boards, the importance of effective communication between management at all levels, to ensure transmission and communication of timely, accurate and complete information, is also highlighted. Through a comparative analysis of two contrasting corporate governance systems, namely, Germany and the UK, it analyses and evaluates how the design of corporate governance systems could influence transparency, disclosure, as well as higher levels of monitoring and accountability. Whilst highlighting the need for, and the growing importance of formal risk assessment models, the paper also emphasises the dangers inherent in formalism – as illustrated by a rules based approach to regulation. It will however, demonstrate that detailed rules could still operate within a system of principles based regulation – whilst enabling a consideration of the substance of the transactions which are involved. In addressing the issues raised by principles based regulation, the extent to which such issues can be resolved, to a large extent, depends on adequate compliance with Basel Core Principle 17 (for effective banking supervision) – and particularly on the implementation, design and compliance with “clear arrangements for delegating authority and responsibility.”

International Framework for Liquidity Risk Measurement, Standards and Monitoring: Corporate Governance and Internal Controls

This paper is structured in accordance with identified components which are considered to be essential to the successful implementation of the (two fold) topics of discussion of this paper, namely, monitoring and liquidity risk measurements. The importance of successfully communicating results obtained from monitoring and measuring such risks, and the role of corporate governance in ensuring such effective communication, constitutes a recurring theme throughout this paper. The identified components are as follows: i) Corporate governance (ii) Internal controls (iii) Disclosure (iv) Management of risk (v) Substance over form (vi) Transparency As well as highlighting the interdependence of these components, the paper also aims to accentuate the importance of individual components. Whilst no hierarchy of importance is assigned to these components, corporate governance and internal controls are two components which are analysed in greater depth (than other components). Furthermore, corporate governance could be accorded a status of greater importance than internal controls having regard to the fact that whilst internal controls relate to a very vital control aspect of an organisation, corporate governance relates to all processes – be it decision making, control, production, performance, within a company/bank. The paper will also attempt to demonstrate that it is possible to implement a system of regulation which combines increased formalised procedures and/or detailed rules - whilst giving due consideration to the substance of transactions.

Research of liquidity adjusted VaR and ES in Chinese stock market — based on extreme value theory

China stock market’s value at risk and liquidity adjusted expected shortfall were analyzed by combining extreme value theory with a new constructed liquidity risk measurement indicator. The results of the present paper shows there are some difference between liquidity and price value at risk about the sensitivity of the confidence level, but there is little difference between liquidity and price risk’s expected shortfall about the sensitivity of the confidence level; under different confidence level, the value of both La_VaR and La_ES of Shanghai index are less than those of Shenzhen index, that is to say that the risk in Shanghai market is lower relative to Shenzhen market’s, and the relationship is immune to the degree of market extremity. In the term of liquidity, whether absolute quantity or relative quantity, Shanghai stock market is better than Shenzhen market, but the difference between them is not very significant; The ratio of liquidity risk had more sensitivity to the confidence level, but the ratio of liquidity expected shortfall lacked elasticity to the confidence level.

Funding Liquidity Risk: Definition and Measurement

In this paper we propose definitions of funding liquidity and funding liquidity risk and present a simple, yet intuitive, measure of funding liquidity risk based on data from open market operations. Our empirical analysis uses a unique data set of 135 main refinancing operation auctions conducted at the ECB between June 2005 and December 2007. We find that our proxies for funding liquidity risk are typically stable and low, with occasional spikes, especially during the recent turmoil. We are also able to document downward spirals between funding liquidity risk and market liquidity.

Turnover: Liquidity or Uncertainty?

I show that turnover is unrelated to several alternative measures of liquidity and liquidity risk and that liquidity risk factors cannot explain why higher turnover predicts lower future returns. I find that the aggregate volatility risk factor explains why higher turnover predicts lower future returns. I also find that the negative relation between turnover and future returns is stronger for firms with high market-to-book or bad credit rating and these regularities are also explained by the aggregate volatility risk factor.

Funding Liquidity Risk: Definition and Measurement

In this paper we propose definitions of funding liquidity and funding liquidity risk and present a simple, yet intuitive, measure of funding liquidity risk based on data from open market operations. Our empirical analysis uses a unique data set of 135 main refinancing operation auctions conducted at the ECB between June 2005 and December 2007. We find that our proxies for funding liquidity risk are typically stable and low, with occasional spikes, especially during the recent turmoil. We are also able to document downward spirals between funding liquidity risk and market liquidity. JEL Classification: E58, G21

Trading Probability and Turnover as Measures of Liquidity Risk: Evidence from the U.K. Stock Market

This paper utilises monthly data from the U.K. stock market to examine possible regularities in variables (trading probability and fractional turnover) which may be (or may be hypothesised to be) associated with liquidity risk. Modelling is based upon extensions to the CAPM involving variables closely similar to those employed in the Fama-French three factor model (albeit using Dividend Yield in place of the Book to Market ratio). Our findings suggest that the measure of trading probability used here is a close substitute for the market capitalisation measure associated with the 'Size' effect; and that the fractional turnover variable makes a significant contribution as an addendum to a three factor model.

Liquidity Risk and Correlation Risk: A Clinical Study of the General Motors and Ford Downgrade of May 2005

The GM and Ford downgrade to junk status during May 2005 caused a wide-spread sell-off in their corporate bonds. Using a novel dataset, we document that this sell-off appears to have generated significant liquidity risk for market-makers, as evidenced in the significant imbalance in their quotes towards sales. We also document that simultaneously, there was excess co-movement in the fixed-income securities of all industries, not just in those of auto firms. In particular, using credit-default swaps (CDS) data, we find a substantial increase in the co-movement between innovations in the CDS spreads of GM and Ford and those of firms in all other industries, the increase being greatest during the period surrounding the actual downgrade and reversing sharply thereafter. We show that a measure of liquidity risk faced by corporate bond market-makers - specifically, the imbalance towards sales in the volume and frequency of quotes on GM and Ford bonds - explains a significant portion of this excess co-movement. Additional robustness checks suggest that this relationship between the liquidity risk faced by market-makers and the correlation risk for other securities in which they make markets was likely causal. Overall, the evidence is supportive of theoretical models which imply that funding liquidity risk faced by financial intermediaries is a determinant of market prices during stress times.