Risk Premium Research Articles

Public debt stabilization via a stochastic differential game paradigm

In this paper, we examine a public debt stabilization in a country under inflation targeting by arguing that bond yields are sensitive to inflation risks. Endogenously defining the convenience premium function, we focus on fiscal and monetary strategic interactions within an optimal control setting. The level of the debt-to-gross domestic produced (GDP) ratio and current inflation rate of the country are considered as the state variables in the game. We then focus on the convenience risk premium and rate of inflation as market-based disciplining devices, to articulate the Nash noncooperative equilibria, cooperative equilibria and Stackelberg equilibria via a feedback control strategy. We show that the outcome of the game depends on the parameters of the game, the type of equilibrium one considers and the decision horizon. When the current inflation rate follows an uncontrolled Ornstein–Uhlenbeck dynamic process, we highlight its effects on the growth rate of the debt ratio. Hence, our model provides a novel framework in which monetary and fiscal authorities can simultaneously achieve their individual interests, while achieving an optimal debt stabilization policy in the presence of inflation. We also highlight the need for governments to adopt policy-approaches which maintain the debt-to-GDP ratio under an inflation-dependent ceiling.

Reducing the negative impact of wildfire disasters through multi-scenario risk analysis of land investment

Natural meteorological and climatological hazards and vulnerable vegetation are frequent triggers of natural disasters, such as wildfires. These cause loss of life and significant economic damage, likely to increase due to climate and socio-economic changes. The increase in wildfires in recent decades has affected the decision-making of technocrats and policy experts and created the need for more sophisticated risk management. This paper develops a theoretical framework for reducing the economic impact of wildfire risk on forests. Also provides insight into land use decisions regarding losses that this increased risk of forest land management can cause. The impact of wildfire risk on economic land value is evaluated by comparing three scenarios, i.e. the deterministic risk-adjusted land expectation value with its risk-free counterparts calculated assuming the stationary risk and predicted increasing risk as time goes by. Also, for this purpose, we evaluate the economically optimal length rotation period pine stands and the risk premium. Fire risk is described as the probability of pine stands destruction due to their age and meteorological conditions in the experimental area Záhorská lowland (western Slovakia). Our findings highlight the importance of alerting forest policymakers to carefully incorporate assessment of the increasing risk of random natural disasters due to climate change into sustainable forest management. The study's results will also help current or future forest owners estimate and evaluate the economic/investing risk when buying or selling forest land.

Preferential trade agreements as insurance

We investigate preferential trade agreement (PTA) formation when risk averse countries face demand uncertainty and, hence, have an insurance motive for pursuing trade integration. In this environment, when deciding which type of PTA − if any − they wish to form, countries seek to maximise their net welfare; that is, their expected utility less a risk premium. The desire for insurance influences, not just whether a particular PTA forms, but also the preferred depth of integration. We analyze the insurance implications of free trade agreements (FTAs), customs unions (CUs), and countries choosing to stand alone. We further distinguish between shallow CUs and deep CUs; in the former, members maximise the sum of their individual net welfares, while in the latter they maximise the net value of the sum of their individual expected welfares. We show that differences in country risk attitudes and the levels of risk they face, as well as the degree to which these risks are correlated with each other, each, and together, influence the formation and design of TAs. When countries’ demands are uncorrelated, they form a deep CU if their levels of risk aversion are sufficiently different. If, however, their risk attitudes are similar, countries opt for shallower trade integration − either a shallow CU or a FTA − if they face low levels of uncertainty, and choose to stand alone if one country faces a sufficiently high level of uncertainty. When countries’ demands are correlated, they tend to form a deep CU if their demands are strongly negatively correlated, a FTA if their demands are strongly positively correlated and a shallow CU when their demands are weakly correlated. Intuitively, differences in country risk attitudes (i.e., their degree of risk aversion) act as an additional source of comparative advantage. Deeper integration − particularly via a CU − permits less risk averse members to essentially export their relative partiality for risk to more risk averse partners, thereby effectively providing the latter with insurance.

Political uncertainty and institutional herding

Political uncertainty represents a key determinant of corporate investment decisions. In this paper, we study the relation between political uncertainty and investment from the perspective of institutional investors. Using U.S. equity holdings data from 13F filings, we find that institutional investors herd during politically uncertain times. This trading behavior is stronger when U.S. presidents are unpopular, due to their proclivity for controversial policies, and among riskier stocks. We also find that this mechanism, despite generating some excess trading, helps incorporate a risk premium into stock prices. Overall, the findings unveil a new channel through which political uncertainty affects financial markets.

Informed Trading and Return Predictability in China: Research Based on Ensemble Neural Network

ABSTRACT We construct a new informed trading index based on the high-frequency trading data of the Chinese A-share market using the ensemble neural network algorithm. We find that the informed trading index is a strong negative predictor of future aggregate stock market returns, with monthly in-sample and out-of-sample R 2 of 5.45% and 3.53%, respectively, which is far greater than the predictive power of other previously studied informed trading indicators and macroeconomic variables. The asset allocation strategy based on our index can generate large economic gains for the mean-variance investors, with annualized CER (certain equivalent return) gains ranging from 10.91% to 7.80% as the investor’s risk appetite varies. The driving force of the predictive power appears to stem from the liquidity provider role that informed traders play, which decreases the market’s illiquidity risk and lowers the risk premium of equity. Our analysis complements the returns predictability study by adding a new predictor on the one hand and informs market timing strategies on the other.

Commodity sectors and factor investment strategies

Commodity sectors exhibit heterogeneous characteristics owing to their limited supply and demand. To analyze these sector heterogeneities, we construct commodity factor portfolios without using a single sector and investigate whether commodity sectors play an important role in determining the risk premiums of commodity futures. We construct an equally weighted portfolio that includes momentum, basis, basis momentum, value, and hedging pressure while excluding the precious metal sector. We find that this portfolio generates a Sharpe ratio of 1.67. This finding indicates that the special status of precious metals employed as hedging tools for other assets distorts the performance of commodity factors.

The U.S. Dollar and variance risk premia imbalances

The U.S. Dollar and variance risk premia imbalances

On the sources of the aggregate risk premium: Risk aversion, bubbles or regime-switching?

We develop and estimate a consumption-based asset pricing model that uses historical US financial data and assumes recursive utility, allowing for priced regime-switching risk and intrinsic bubbles. We also estimate several restricted versions, including only a subset of these features. Priced regime-switching risk is essential to the equity risk premium, explaining more than fifty per cent of it. Furthermore, a model that does not consider regime switching would overestimate the public's risk aversion, mistakenly assigning the observed risk premium to high-risk aversion instead of priced regime-switching. We also find that intrinsic bubbles are statistically significant, and even though they are not crucial in explaining the risk premium, they substantially improve the model's fit at the end of the sample.

Very Noisy Option Prices and Inference Regarding the Volatility Risk Premium

ABSTRACTThe stylized fact that volatility is not priced in individual equity options does not withstand scrutiny. First, we show that the average return of heavily traded deep out‐of‐the‐money call options on stocks is −116 basis points per day. Second, Fama‐MacBeth estimates of the volatility risk premium in stock options are similar to those in S&P 500 Index call options. Third, the mean return of heavily traded delta‐hedged at‐the‐money calls (puts) is −23 (−30) basis points. Fourth, the variance risk premium in stock options is negative. Our analysis highlights the importance of microstructure biases and robustness in empirical work with options.

Price Risk Exposure of Small Participants in Liberalized Multi-National Power Markets: A Case Study on the Belize–Mexico Interconnection

This study examined the price risk of the Belize–Mexico interconnection using ARMA-ARCH models to assess electricity pricing volatility and autoregression to determine the influence of conditional volatilities and import consumption. The findings revealed that the volatility of both markets, especially spot price, showed rare high-impact shocks and prolonged periods of volatile clusters. Volatile pricing tendencies, and forward pricing to a lesser extent, had positive effects on premiums. Premiums were largely dependent on pricing properties and system conditions of the supplier’s (Mexico) side, with negligible influence from the buyer’s (Belize) side. However, significant effects were found during certain hours with the buyer’s loading and transmission loss patterns. Practical implications revealed the possibility of occasional losses caused mostly by information delays and misalignment of risk factors and premiums, which could affect Belize’s power cost affordability and scheduling of local generation. Further research can broaden this current scope to enhance planning on local power supply by integrating current findings on the importation market behavior with the buyer’s local power expansion plan.

Transaction Costs and Capacity of Systematic Corporate Bond Strategies

Can systematic corporate bond investments generate attractive returns net of costs? To answer this question, we apply the principle of market microstructure invariance and obtain bond transaction costs increasing in trade size. As the size of the bond fund increases, the market impact reduces net returns to zero. High-turnover strategies hit capacity constraints fast. Low-turnover credit risk–focused strategies have much higher capacities that can be further increased by constraining portfolio rebalancing in realistic ways. Transaction costs do not absorb the corporate bond risk premium even in the largest possible market portfolios.

Contracting when enforcement is weak: evidence from an audit study

Abstract How are contracts structured in the presence of relationship-specific investments when legal enforcement is weak? Using a new audit methodology, we show that simple financial contracts in combination with social norms and reputation concerns can sustain relationship-specific transactions. Wholesalers in the market for pens in India use upfront payments rather than increased risk premiums to mitigate risks arising from relationship-specific investments. Upfront payments for printed pens cover only 40 percent of the production costs, highlighting the importance of upfront payments as a screening device. Ex-post, renegotiation is more likely for printed pens, but in a substantial fraction of cases, renegotiation fails.

Financial Distress Premium or Discount? Some New Evidence

This study investigates the contradiction in the finding of a positive distress risk premium in Vassalou and Xing’s study and the finding of a negative distress risk premium, i.e., a distress risk discount, in several other studies. Using the default likelihood measure calculated following Vassalou and Xing’s procedure for 1965–2023, we show that excluding outliers and including the time period beyond the end of Vassalou and Xing’s sample period in 1999 makes a difference in the results. Overall, using portfolio sorting and Fama-MacBeth regressions, this study supports the existence of a distress risk discount. This study also documents that the financial distress risk is negatively reflected in security prices even after accounting for size and book-to-market risk factors. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the negative distress risk premium is strong and persistent across economic expansions, recessions, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ruin probability for heavy-tailed and dependent losses under reinsurance strategies

The frequency and severity of extreme events have increased in recent years in many areas. In the context of risk management for insurance companies, reinsurance provides a safe solution as it offers coverage for large claims. This paper investigates the impact of dependent extreme losses on ruin probabilities under four types of reinsurance: excess of loss, quota share, largest claims, and ecomor. To achieve this, we use the dynamic GARCH-EVT-Copula combined model to fit the specific features of claim data and provide more accurate estimates compared to classical models. We derive the surplus processes and asymptotic ruin probabilities under the Cramér–Lundberg risk process. Using a numerical example with real-life data, we illustrate the effects of dependence and the behavior of reinsurance strategies for both insurers and reinsurers. This comparison includes risk premiums, surplus processes, risk measures, and ruin probabilities. The findings show that the GARCH-EVT-Copula model mitigates the over- and under-estimation of risk associated with extremes and lowers the ruin probability for heavy-tailed distributions.

How do market volatility and risk aversion sentiment inter-influence over time? Evidence from Chinese SSE 50 ETF options

We propose to implement the TVP-VAR-SV model and the spillover index approach to investigate the dynamics of mutual influences between market volatility and risk aversion sentiment (represented by variance risk premium), from aspects of realized variance (RV) and implied variance (IV). We innovatively study the evolution of volatility information transmission mechanisms by analyzing time-varying impulse response and dynamic connectedness in the Chinese market. Upon inspecting shock effects from investor sentiment to RV and IV, we discover that investor sentiment can cause sudden shocks on realized volatility but produce expansive shocks on expected volatility. As we compare spillover effects in call and put options, we find that (i) sentiments in put option contain more volatility information and can affect market volatility, while sentiments in call option primarily perceive volatility spillovers from market volatility, and (ii) investor sentiments in call (put) option become to present more volatility information in a bullish (bearish) market. Our study provides valuable insights on behavioral finance theory and portfolio risk management.

The impact of the Bank of Japan’s exchange traded fund and corporate bond purchases on firms’ capital structure

AbstractThis study examines how the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ’s) exchange-traded fund (ETF) and corporate bond (CB) purchases affect the capital structure of Japanese listed firms. The results first suggest that the BOJ’s ETF purchases reduced the equity risk premium for firms included in the purchases, thereby lowering their cost of equity. These firms issued more stocks and became less dependent on bond debt and bank loans than control firms, resulting in a lower level of leverage. On the other hand, the BOJ’s CB purchases lowered the risk premium of bonds eligible for such purchases, which implies a decline in the cost of bond debt. Firms eligible for CB purchases issued more bonds, while reducing bank debt but to a smaller extent, thus having higher leverage than firms not eligible for CB purchases. Categorizing firms into four groups based on whether their stocks were included in ETF purchases and/or their bonds were eligible for CB purchases further shows that the policy impacts on firm financing have differed depending on which group a firm fell in. These results indicate that the BOJ’s ETF and CB purchases have had a considerable impact on the cost of capital, securities issuance activities, and corporate capital structure.

A rational finance explanation of the stock predictability puzzle

AbstractWe address the stock predictability puzzle, a challenge in the stock market often discussed in behavioral finance. Our approach formulates a statistical model within rational finance, avoiding reliance on behavioral finance assumptions, and integrates stock return predictability into the Black–Scholes option pricing framework. Empirical analysis focuses on the predictability of stock prices by option and spot traders, introducing a forward‐looking measure we term “implied excess predictability.” Results show that option traders' predictability of stock returns positively correlates with moneyness, whereas for spot traders, this relationship is inverse. These findings suggest a potential asymmetry in stock price predictability between spot and option traders. Additionally, we demonstrate the importance of incorporating stock return predictability into option pricing formulas, particularly for options with strike prices significantly different from the stock price. Conversely, when moneyness is close to unity, predictability is not integrated into option pricing, indicating equal information among spot and option traders. Comparison of volatility measures reveals the difference between implied and realized variances or variance risk premia as potential predictors of stock returns.

Intersecting Dynamics: The Influence of Macroeconomic Factors and Financial Development on Interest Rate Spreads in Uganda

The study investigates the factors influencing interest rate spreads in Uganda's banking sector, focusing on inflation, GDP, Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER), private sector credit, and financial development. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model on data from 2001 to 2022, it examines short and long-term dynamics between these variables and interest rate spreads, within the liquidity preference theory framework. In the short run, inflation and GDP have marginally significant positive impacts on interest rate spreads, indicating that initial increases may widen spreads due to heightened liquidity demand and economic activity. Conversely, in the long run, these factors exhibit significant negative effects, suggesting a stabilizing influence of monetary policy and increased market efficiency. The REER's short-term impact reflects currency value fluctuations affecting risk premium adjustments, which diminish in the long run as markets adapt. The study also explores the interaction between inflation and financial development, represented by private sector credit, on interest rate spreads. Short-term results show a non-significant negative moderation by financial development, while long-term analysis suggests a potential amplification of inflation's effects as the financial sector matures, requiring nuanced financial development policies. Policy recommendations stress the importance of stabilizing inflation and exchange rates to control interest rate spreads in the short term. Long-term strategies include enhancing banking sector efficiency and promoting competitive practices to mitigate the negative effects of economic growth on interest rate spreads.

Missing Financial Data

Abstract We document the widespread nature and structure of missing observations of firm fundamentals and show how to systematically handle them. Missing financial data affects more than 70% of firms that represent about half of the total market cap. Firm fundamentals have complex systematic missing patterns, invalidating traditional approaches to imputation. We propose a novel imputation method to obtain a fully observed panel of firm fundamentals that exploits both time-series and cross-sectional dependency of data to impute missing values and allows for general systematic patterns of missingness. We document important implications for risk premiums estimates, cross-sectional anomalies, and portfolio construction. (JEL C14, C38, C55, G12)

Financial fragility, regime change, and monetary policy in an open economy – A model and empirical application to emerging market countries

July 20, 2023 (Revised April 15, 2024) The experiences of the 1997–98 Asian Financial Crisis and the 2008–09 Global Financial Crisis encouraged economists to develop new open-economy dynamic finance-macro models. Such models allow for nonlinearities -- to study the effects of contractionary currency devaluation -- in contrast to models of expansionary currency devaluation. The generic dynamic model of the finance-macro link in this paper includes the dynamics of the inflation rates, output gap, and financial variables (credit flows, risk premia, and exchange rates). The theoretical model with nonlinearities shows that there can be resilient or non-resilient outcomes of the dynamics. The level of resilience is however dependent on some empirical vulnerabilities. Relevant empirics show the risk premium is related not only to domestic real macro and financial variables, but also to the exchange rate and the foreign currency reserves. Econometrically, this paper explores the regime-dependent interaction of the output gap and financial variables in a two-regime non-linear Logistic Vector Smooth Transition Auto-Regressive (LVSTAR) model with a logistic-type transition function. This empirical study reveals that the financial variables of emerging economies show regime-dependent responses to external shocks. Therefore, a positive shock to the risk premia in a negative output gap regime entails an exchange rate depreciation, and accelerating contractions. Overall, however, a diversity of EM economies are examined in terms of their response to external shocks and their resilience levels. This research also has implications for international portfolio holdings.