Rev Financ Stud Research Articles

Risk management with multiple VaR constraints

We study a utility maximization problem under multiple Value-at-Risk (VaR)-type constraints. The optimization framework is particularly important for financial institutions which have to follow short-time VaR-type regulations under some realistic regulatory frameworks like Solvency II, but need to serve long-term liabilities. Deriving closed-form solutions, we show that risk management using multiple VaR constraints is more useful for loss prevention at intertemporal time instances compared with the well-known result of the one-VaR problem in Basak and Shapiro (Rev Financ Stud 14:371–405, 2001), confirming the numerical analysis of Shi and Werker (J Bank Finance 36(12):3227–3238, 2012). In addition, the multiple-VaR solution at maturity on average dominates the one-VaR solution in a wide range of intermediate market scenarios, but performs worse in good and very bad market scenarios. The range of these very bad market scenarios is however rather limited. Finally, we show that it is preferable to reach a fixed terminal state through insured intertemporal states rather than through extreme up and down movements, showing that a multiple-VaR framework induces a preference for less volatility.

Validating empirically identified risk factors

Fama and French (J Financ, 33, 3–56. 1992); Fama and French (J Financ, 47, 427–465. 1993) provide discipline altering studies which ended the dominance of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and supplanted it with the Fama and French three factor model. The CAPM identified the market factor as the only systematic risk factor; the three factor model added size and value as systematic risk factors. The latter study validated the size and value risk factors by showing a correlation between portfolio and factor time-series returns. This model has been widely accepted but has proved “open-ended” as researchers have mimicked this effort to identify a large number of additional factors. Harvey et al. (Rev Financ Stud, 29, 5–68. 2016) note that researchers have empirically identified 316 factors tested as systematic risk factors and argue that the discipline needs to identify the few relevant risk factors. Motivated by this seemingly futile effort to find the correct set of risk factors, we contribute by suggesting necessary conditions to validate empirically identified risk factors. We apply these conditions to the factors of the original Fama-French model. Based on our analysis we argue that neither the size nor value mimicking factors should be considered systematic risk factors.

Ambiguity sensitive preferences in Ellsberg frameworks

We study the market implications of ambiguity sensitive preferences using the \(\alpha \)-maxmin expected utility (\(\alpha \)-MEU) model. In the standard Ellsberg framework, we prove that \(\alpha \)-MEU preferences are equivalent to either maxmin, maxmax or subjective expected utility (SEU). We show how ambiguity aversion impacts equilibrium asset prices, and revisit the laboratory experimental findings in Bossaerts et al. (Rev Financ Stud 23:1325–1359, 2010). Only when there are three or more ambiguous states, \(\alpha \)-MEU, maxmin, maxmax and SEU models induce different portfolio choices. We suggest criteria to discriminate among these models in laboratory experiments and show that ambiguity seeking agents may prevent the existence of market equilibrium. Our results indicate that ambiguity matters for portfolio choice and does not wash out in equilibrium.

Business cycles, financial cycles and capital structure

We perform peridogram based cycle analysis of firm capital structure and find evidence that firms’ leverage is both persistent and cyclical. The cyclicality of leverage is supported by the trade-off, pecking order and market timing capital structure theories (Korajczyk and Levy in J Financ Econ 68:75–109, 2003; Bhamra et al. in Rev Financ Stud 23:645–703, 2010). Although market timing theory research supports persistence, previous literature dictates that the trade-off and pecking order theories may predict either persistent or mean reverting leverage. Our tests reject mean reversion in favor of persistent and cyclical leverage. We corroborate pecking order theory literature that predicts leverage is persistent. In these models, when firms’ investment spending is below earnings, leverage decreases. In addition, we examine whether firms change their capital structure as a result of business and financial cycles. Since financial cycles last longer than business cycles, financial cycles should have a long term effect on leverage. Our findings confirm the persistent leverage business cycle models that suggest firms change their capital structure due to financial and credit cycles (Jermann and Quadrini in Am Econ Rev 102:238–271, 2012; Azariadis et al. in Rev Econ Stud 83:1364–1405, 2016). We conclude that leverage is persistent due to the cyclicality of the financing decision.

Tukey’s transformational ladder for portfolio management

Over the past half-century, the empirical finance community has produced vast literature on the advantages of the equally weighted Standard and Poor (SP DeMiguel et al. in Rev Financ Stud 22(5):1915–1953, 2009; Jacobs et al. in J Financ Mark 19:62–85, 2014; Treynor in Financ Anal J 61(5):65–69, 2005). However, portfolio allocation based on Tukey’s transformational ladder has, rather surprisingly, remained absent from the literature. In this work, we consider the S&P 500 portfolio over the 1958–2015 time horizon weighted by Tukey’s transformational ladder (Tukey in Exploratory data analysis, Addison-Wesley, Boston, 1977): $$1/x^2,\,\, 1/x,\,\, 1/\sqrt{x},\,\, \text {log}(x),\,\, \sqrt{x},\,\, x,\,\, \text {and} \,\, x^2$$ , where x is defined as the market capitalization weighted S&P 500 portfolio. Accounting for dividends and transaction fees, we find that the 1/ $$x^2$$ weighting strategy produces cumulative returns that significantly dominate all other portfolio returns, achieving a compound annual growth rate of 18% over the 1958–2015 horizon. Our story is furthered by a startling phenomenon: both the cumulative and annual returns of the $$1/x^2$$ weighting strategy are superior to those of the 1 / x weighting strategy, which are in turn superior to those of the $$1/\sqrt{x}$$ weighted portfolio, and so forth, ending with the $$x^2$$ transformation, whose cumulative returns are the lowest of the seven transformations of Tukey’s transformational ladder. The order of cumulative returns precisely follows that of Tukey’s transformational ladder. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to discover this phenomenon.

The pricing of common exchange rate factors in the U.S. equity market

We extend Lustig et al. (Rev Financ Stud 24:3731–3777, 2011) and Brusa et al. (The International CAPM Redux, 2014) by examining if the common exchange rate factors, the dollar and carry factors, are priced in the US equity market. Our results suggest that while the carry factor has incremental pricing information relative to the US market factor, the dollar factor (or the trade-weighted exchange rate index) is redundant. Our results have important theoretical as well as practical implications. Theoretically, we suggest that financial economists take an endogenous perspective of exchange rates. Practically, we suggest that practitioners incorporate in the carry factor to measure the exposure of exchange rate risk.

Reaching nirvana with a defaultable asset?

We study the optimal dynamic portfolio exposure to predictable default risk, taking inspiration from the search for yield by means of defaultable assets observed before the 2007–2008 crisis and in its aftermath. Under no arbitrage, default risk is compensated by an ‘yield pickup’ that can strongly attract aggressive investors via an investment-horizon effect in their optimal non-myopic portfolios. We show it by stating the optimal dynamic portfolio problem of Kim and Omberg (Rev Financ Stud 9:141–161, 1996) for a defaultable risky asset and by rigorously proving the existence of nirvana-type solutions. We achieve such a contribution to the portfolio optimization literature by means of a careful, closed-form-yielding adaptation to our defaultable asset setting of the general convex duality approach of Kramkov and Schachermayer (Ann Appl Probab 9(3):904–950, 1999; Ann Appl Probab 13(4):1504–1516, 2003).

Systemic risk measures and macroprudential stress tests: an assessment over the 2014 EBA exercise

Regulators’ stress tests on banks further stimulated an academic debate over systemic risk measures and their predictive content. Focusing on marked based measures, Acharya et al. (Rev Financ Stud 30(1):2–47, 2017) provide a theoretical background to use marginal expected shortfall (MES) for predicting the stress test results, and verify it on the 2009 Supervisory Capital Assessment Program of the US banking system. The aim of this paper is to further test the goodness of MES as a predictive measure, by analysing it in relation to the results of the 2014 European stress tests exercise conducted by the European Banking Authority. Our results underscore the importance of choosing the appropriate index to capture the systemic distress event. In fact MES based on a global market index does not show association with the stress test results, in contrast to Financial MES, which is based on a financial market index, and has a significant information and predictive power.

Option spanning beyond $$L_p$$ L p -models

The aim of this paper is to study the spanning power of options in a static financial market that allows non-integrable assets. Our findings extend and unify the results in Galvani (J Math Econ 45(1):73–79, 2009), Galvani and Troitsky (J Math Econ 46(4):616–619, 2010) and Nachman (Rev Financ Stud 1(3):311–328, 1988) for \(L_p\)-models. We also apply the spanning power properties to the pricing problem. In particular, we show that prices on call and put options of a limited liability asset can be uniquely extended by arbitrage to all marketed contingent claims written on the asset.

Early exercise premium method for pricing American options under the J-model

This study develops a new model called J-am for pricing American options and for determining the related early exercise boundary (EEB). This model is based on a closed-form solution J-formula for pricing European options, defined in the study by Jerbi (Quantitative Finance, 15:2041–2052, 2015). The J-am pricing formula is a solution of the Black & Scholes (BS) PDE with an additional function called f as a second member and with limit conditions adapted to the American option context. The aforesaid function f represents the cash flows resulting from an early exercise of the option. This study develops the theoretical formulas of the early exercise premium value related to three American option pricing models called J-am, BS-am, and Heston-am models. These three models are based on the J-formula by Jerbi (Quantitative Finance, 15:2041–2052, 2015), BS model, and Heston (Rev Financ Stud, 6:327–343, 1993) model, respectively. This study performs a general algorithm leading to the EEB and to the American option price for the three models. After implementing the algorithms, we compare the three aforesaid models in terms of pricing and the EEB curve. In particular, we examine the equivalence between J-am and Heston-am as an extension of the equivalence studied by Jerbi (Quantitative Finance, 15:2041–2052, 2015). This equivalence is interesting since it can reduce a bi-dimensional model to an equivalent uni-dimensional model. We deduce that our model J-am exactly fits the Heston-am one for certain parameters values to be optimized and that all the theoretical results conform with the empirical studies. The required CPU time to compute the solution is significantly less in the case of the J-am model compared with to the Heston-am model.

A four-factor stochastic volatility model of commodity prices

The number of factors driving the uncertain dynamics of commodity prices has been a central consideration in financial literature. While the majority of empirical studies relies on the assumption that up to three factors are sufficient to explain all relevant uncertainty inherent in commodity spot, futures, and option prices, evidence from Trolle and Schwartz (Rev Financ Stud 22(11):4423–4461, 2009b) and Hughen (J Futures Mark 30(2):101–133, 2010) indicates a need for additional risk factors. In this article, we propose a four-factor maximal affine stochastic volatility model that allows for three independent sources of risk in the futures term structure and an additional, potentially unspanned stochastic volatility process. The model principally integrates the insights from Hughen (2010) and Tang (Quant Finance 12(5):781–790, 2012) and nests many well-known models in the literature. It can account for several stylized facts associated with commodity dynamics such as mean reversion to a stochastic level, stochastic volatility in the convenience yield, a time-varying correlation structure, and time-varying risk-premia. In-sample and out-of-sample tests indicate a superior model fit to futures and options data as well as lower hedging errors compared to three-factor benchmark models. The results also indicate that three factors are not sufficient to model the joint dynamics of futures and option prices accurately.

Product market competition and cost stickiness

Extant literature on cost stickiness has focused on how firm-specific characteristics affect the asymmetric cost behavior. In this paper, we explore how a firm’s operating environment affects the firm’s cost stickiness. Specifically, we examine the effect of product market competition on cost stickiness since a firm’s investment and cost retention decisions partly depend on how the firm interacts with its rival firms in the product markets. Using two firm-level text-based product market competition measures extracted from management disclosures in firms’ 10-K filings (Li et al. in J Account Res 51(2):399–436, 2013; Hoberg and Phillips in Rev Financ Stud 23(10):3773–3811, 2010; J Polit Econ, 2015), we find strong evidence consistent with cost asymmetry increasing in competition after controlling for known economic determinants of cost stickiness. In additional analyses, we also find that the effect of product market competition on the degree of cost stickiness increases in firms’ financial strength, likely because management in financially stronger firms has more resources for investment expenditures in spite of a sales fall. We also find that cost stickiness is increasing in competition if management is optimistic about future demand, whereas competition is not associated with cost asymmetry if management is pessimistic about future demand. Finally, we find that the relationship between competition and cost stickiness, although statistically insignificant at conventional levels, is more pronounced for single-segment firms relative to multi-segment firms.

The investment performance, attributes, and investment behavior of ethical equity mutual funds in the US: an empirical investigation

This paper examines the investment performance of US ethical equity mutual funds relative to the market and their traditional counterparts using a survivorship-bias-free database. We detect selectivity and market timing performance of fund managers using two models. First, we use Treynor and Mazuy’s (Harv Bus Rev 44:131–136, 1966) model to determine these performances from a quadratic regression of fund returns on market returns. Second, we use a comprehensive and integrated model derived by Bhattacharya and Pfleiderer (A note on performance evaluation. Technical Report 714, Stanford, California, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, 1983) and Lee and Rahman (J Bus 63:261–278, 1990) to simultaneously capture stock selection and market timing skill of fund managers. This model extracts timing skill from the relationship between managers’ forecast and realized market return. In addition, the R2 approach developed by Amihud and Goyenko (Rev Financ Stud 26:667–694, 2013) for evaluating selectivity is also used in this paper. Our empirical results indicate that ethical funds perform no worse than their traditional counterparts, although ethical and traditional funds do not outperform the market. We find some evidence of superior security selection and/or market timing skill among a very small number of ethical and traditional funds. It appears that matching traditional funds have slightly more abnormal (superior as well as inferior) performance than ethical funds in our sample.

Using the dependent wild bootstrap for the nonparametric goodness-of-fit test for density functions

In this paper, we consider the well-known nonparametric consistent model-specification test for the stationary density function (see [Aït-Sahalia Y. Testing continuous-time models of the spot interest rate. Rev Financ Stud. 1996;9:385–426; Li Q. Nonparametric testing of closeness between two unknown distribution functions. Econ Rev. 1996;15:261–274; Fan Y, Ullah A. On goodness-of-fit tests for weakly dependent processes using kernel method. J Nonparametric Stat. 2000;11:337–360]) and reinvestigate it carefully using asymptotics and simulation. Our work reveals that the test is subject to power and size distortions, which are mainly caused by dependence or convergence rate changes under the null and alternative hypothesis. A dependent wild bootstrap is newly suggested as a feasible remedy to such distortions. Our result provides a complete explanation as well as a solution to the problem that experienced by Aït-Sahalia [Testing continuous-time models of the spot interest rate. Rev Financ Stud. 1996;9:385–426], that is, that the test rejects true models too often when independent and identically distributed asymptotic critical values are used.

A PIN per day shows what news convey: the intraday probability of informed trading

This paper develops a new intraday estimation procedure for the sequential microstructure trading model initially proposed by Easley et al. (Rev Financ Stud 10:805–835, 1997a). Using a full year of intraday trading data for the top 100 German stocks, we demonstrate how the new estimation procedure eliminates or significantly reduces the shortcomings of the original approach in recent, high-frequency trading environments. We slice a trading day in buckets of several minutes’ length to obtain one estimate of the composite variable probability of informed trading (PIN) per day. This approach makes PIN applicable in short horizon event studies. Convergence rates are above 95 % even for the most liquid stocks and the model’s underlying assumptions of independence for the arrival of traders and information events are fulfilled to a much higher degree than in the original approach. An empirical application in an event study type setting demonstrates how official announcements stipulated in German insider trading legislation significantly reduce information asymmetry upon public disclosure.

Does Bank Liquidity Creation Contribute to Economic Growth? Evidence from Russia

The financial crisis has shown that the liquidity creation function of banks is critical for the economy. In this paper, we empirically investigate whether bank liquidity creation fosters economic growth in a large emerging market, Russia. We follow the methodology of Berger and Bouwman, Rev Financ Stud 22:3779–3837, (2009) to measure bank liquidity creation using a rich and exhaustive dataset of Russian banks. We perform fixed effects and GMM estimations to examine the relation of liquidity creation with economic growth for Russian regions for the period 2004–2012. Our results suggest that bank liquidity creation strengthens economic growth. This effect was not halted by the financial crisis. Our conclusion thus supports a positive impact of financial development on economic growth in Russia.

Prediction-based estimating functions for stochastic volatility models with noisy data: comparison with a GMM alternative

Prediction-based estimating functions (PBEFs), introduced in Sorensen (Econom J 3:123–147, 2000), are reviewed, and PBEFs for the Heston (Rev Financ Stud 6:327–343, 1993) stochastic volatility model are derived with and without the inclusion of noise in the data. The finite sample performance of the PBEF-based estimator is investigated in a Monte Carlo study and compared to the performance of the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator from Bollerslev and Zhou (J Econom 109:33–65, 2002) that is based on conditional moments of integrated variance. We derive new moment conditions in the presence of noise, but we also consider noise correcting the GMM estimator by basing it on a realized kernel instead of realized variance. Our Monte Carlo study reveals great promise for the estimator based on PBEFs. The study also shows that the PBEF-based estimator outperforms the GMM estimator, both in the setting with MMS noise and in the setting without MMS noise, especially for small sample sizes. Finally, in an empirical application we fit the Heston model to SPY data and investigate how the two methods handle real data and possible model misspecification. The empirical study also shows how the flexibility of the PBEF-based method can be used for robustness checks.

Fund performance and subsequent risk: a study of mutual fund tournaments using holdings-based measures

The tournament hypothesis of Brown et al. (J Finance 51(1):85–110, 1996) posits that managers of poorly performing funds actively increase portfolio risk in the second half of the year. At the same time, it is a well-established fact that stock returns and the subsequent return standard deviation are negatively related. We propose a decomposition of fund return standard deviation for the second half of the year using holdings-based measures to distinguish between risk changes that result from holding the portfolio and those that are due to managers’ trades. We extend the return gap of Kacperczyk et al. (Rev Financ Stud 21(6):2379–2416, 2008) to the return standard deviation dimension and define the volatility gap as the difference between fund return volatility and buy-and-hold portfolio volatility. Our empirical findings show that changes in the return volatilities of equity mutual funds are largely explained by shifts in buy-and-hold portfolio volatility. Thus, we find only weak evidence of tournament behavior among mutual funds.

Are put-call ratios a substitute for short sales?

Prior research argues that pessimistic traders can use options as substitutes for short sales particularly when stocks are expensive to short. Motivated by this contention, we examine the relation between put-call ratios, short-selling activity, and constraints to short selling. Results show that (1) put-call ratios are inversely related, instead of directly related, to proxies for short-sale constraints and (2) the significant negative relation between current put-call ratios and future returns (Pan and Poteshman in Rev Financ Stud 19:871–908, 2006) is orthogonal to proxies for short-sale constraints. These results indicate that short-sale constraints do not influence bearish option activity. While prior studies show that short sellers are generally contrarian in contemporaneous and past returns, we find that put-call ratios follow periods of negative returns. However, any observed return predictability contained in put-call ratios is driven by ratios that follow periods of positive returns.

Asymptotic Expansion Formula of Option Price Under Multifactor Heston Model

The stochastic volatility model of Heston (Rev Financ Stud 6(2):327–343, 1993) has found difficulty in describing some of the important features of implied volatility dynamics, leading to a quest for multifactor extensions as well as the incorporation of time-dependent model parameters. In this paper, an asymptotic expansion approach to the multifactor Heston model with time-dependent parameters is developed. The results of Benhamou et al. (SIAM J Financ Math 1(1):289–325, 2010) are extended and it is shown that the extension to the multifactor model involves an extra expansion term that captures the interaction between variance factors. The expansion formula under constant parameters can be explicitly computed and the incorporation of time-dependent parameters is straightforward under the framework. As illustration, a two-factor model is calibrated to data of index options and variance swaps and it is found that it is possible to distinguish a short-term and long-term variance factor from the implied volatility surface and variance swap rates. Moreover, the two-factor model is able to reproduce the shapes of the implied volatility surface during various market scenarios.