Modelling dynamic portfolio risk using risk drivers of elliptical processes

Rafael Schmidt and Christian Schmieder

Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 2009, vol. 44, issue 2, 229-244

Abstract: The situation of a limited availability of historical data is frequently encountered in portfolio risk estimation, especially in credit risk estimation. This makes it difficult, for example, to find statistically significant temporal structures in the data on the single asset level. By contrast, there is often a broader availability of cross-sectional data, i.e. a large number of assets in the portfolio. This paper proposes a stochastic dynamic model which takes this situation into account. The modelling framework is based on multivariate elliptical processes which model portfolio risk via sub-portfolio specific volatility indices called portfolio risk drivers. The dynamics of the risk drivers are modelled by multiplicative error models (MEMs)-as introduced by Engle [Engle, R.F., 2002. New frontiers for ARCH models. J. Appl. Econom. 17, 425-446]-or by traditional ARMA models. The model is calibrated to Moody's KMV Credit Monitor asset returns (also known as firm-value returns) given on a monthly basis for 756 listed European companies at 115 time points from 1996 to 2005. This database is used by financial institutions to assess the credit quality of firms. The proposed risk drivers capture the volatility structure of asset returns in different industry sectors. A characteristic cyclical as well as a seasonal temporal structure of the risk drivers is found across all industry sectors. In addition, each risk driver exhibits idiosyncratic developments. We also identify correlations between the risk drivers and selected macroeconomic variables. These findings may improve the estimation of risk measures such as the (portfolio) Value at Risk. The proposed methods are general and can be applied to any series of multivariate asset or equity returns in finance and insurance.

Keywords: Portfolio; risk; modelling; Elliptical; processes; Credit; risk; Multiplicative; error; model; Volatility; clustering; Moody's; KMV; Credit; Monitor; database (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-6687(07)00059-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Modelling dynamic portfolio risk using risk drivers of elliptical processes (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:insuma:v:44:y:2009:i:2:p:229-244

Access Statistics for this article

Insurance: Mathematics and Economics is currently edited by R. Kaas, Hansjoerg Albrecher, M. J. Goovaerts and E. S. W. Shiu

More articles in Insurance: Mathematics and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().