Copulas in finance and insurance

Copulas provide a potential useful modeling tool to represent the dependence structure among variables and to generate joint distributions by combining given marginal distributions. Simulations play a relevant role in finance and insurance. They are used to replicate efficient frontiers or extremal values, to price options, to estimate joint risks, and so on. Using copulas, it is easy to construct and simulate from multivariate distributions based on almost any choice of marginals and any type of dependence structure. In this paper we outline recent contributions of statistical modeling using copulas in finance and insurance. We review issues related to the notion of copulas, copula families, copula-based dynamic and static dependence structure, copulas and latent factor models and simulation of copulas. Finally, we outline hot topics in copulas with a special focus on model selection and goodness-of-fit testing

Copulas in finance and insurance

Copulas provide a potential useful modeling tool to represent the dependence structure among variables and to generate joint distributions by combining given marginal distributions. Simulations play a relevant role in finance and insurance. They are used to replicate efficient frontiers or extremal values, to price options, to estimate joint risks, and so on. Using copulas, it is easy to construct and simulate from multivariate distributions based on almost any choice of marginals and any type of dependence structure. In this paper we outline recent contributions of statistical modeling using copulas in finance and insurance. We review issues related to the notion of copulas, copula families, copula-based dynamic and static dependence structure, copulas and latent factor models and simulation of copulas. Finally, we outline hot topics in copulas with a special focus on model selection and goodness-of-fit testing.Dependence structure, Extremal values, Copula modeling, Copula review

Are benefits from oil - stocks diversification gone? New evidence from a dynamic copula and high frequency data

Oil is perceived as a good diversification tool for stock markets. To fully understand this potential, we propose a new empirical methodology that combines generalized autoregressive score copula functions with high frequency data and allows us to capture and forecast the conditional time-varying joint distribution of the oil -- stocks pair accurately. Our realized GARCH with time-varying copula yields statistically better forecasts of the dependence and quantiles of the distribution relative to competing models. Employing a recently proposed conditional diversification benefits measure that considers higher-order moments and nonlinear dependence from tail events, we document decreasing benefits from diversification over the past ten years. The diversification benefits implied by our empirical model are, moreover, strongly varied over time. These findings have important implications for asset allocation, as the benefits of including oil in stock portfolios may not be as large as perceived

The Shape of the Optimal Hedge Ratio: Modeling Joint Spot-Futures Prices using an Empirical Copula-GARCH Model

Commodity cash and futures prices have been rising steadily since 2006. As evidenced by the April 2008 Commodity Futures Trading Commission Agricultural Forum, there is much concern among traditional futures and options market participants that the usefulness of commodity derivatives has been compromised. When basis risk is particularly high, dynamic hedging methods may be helpful despite their complexity and higher transaction costs. To assess the potential benefits of dynamic hedging in volatile times, this paper proposes a novel, empirical copula-based method to estimate GARCH models and to compute time-varying hedge ratios. This approach allows a nonlinear, asymmetric dependence structure between cash and futures prices. The paper addresses four principal questions: (1) Does the empirical copula-GARCH method overcome traditional limitations of dynamic hedging methods? (2) How does the empirical copula- GARCH hedging approach perform, for storable agricultural commodities, compared with traditional GARCH and Minimum Variance (static) hedging methods? (3) Is dynamic hedging more or less effective in the post-2006 biofuels expansion time period? (4) How sensitive is the ranking of methods to the hedging effectiveness criterion used? Preliminary findings suggest that the empirical copula-GARCH approach leads to superior hedging effectiveness based on some, but not all, risk criteria.Agricultural Finance,

Change analysis of dynamic copula for measuring dependence in multivariate financial data

This paper proposes a new approach to measure the dependence in multivariate financial data. Data in finance and insurance often cover a long time period. Therefore, the economic factors may induce some changes inside the dependence structure. Recently, two methods using copulas have been proposed to analyze such changes. The first approach investigates the changes of copula's parameters. The second one tests the changes of copulas by determining the best copulas using moving windows. In this paper we take into account the non stationarity of the data and analyze : (1) the changes of parameters while the copula family keeps static ; (2) the changes of copula family. We propose a series of tests based on conditional copulas and goodness-of-fit (GOF) tests to decide the type of change, and further give the corresponding change analysis. We illustrate our approach with Standard & Poor 500 and Nasdaq indices, and provide dynamic risk measures.Dynamic copula, goodness-of-fit test, change-point, time-varying parameter, VaR, ES.

Change analysis of a dynamic copula for measuring dependence in multivariate financial data

This paper proposes a new approach to measure the dependence in multivariate financial data. Data in finance and insurance often cover a long time period. Therefore, the economic factors may induce some changes inside the dependence structure. Recently, two methods using copulas have been proposed to analyze such changes. The first approach investigates the changes of copula's parameters. The second one tests the changes of copulas by determining the best copulas using moving windows. In this paper we take into account the non stationarity of the data and analyze : (1) the changes of parameters while the copula family keeps static ; (2) the changes of copula family. We propose a series of tests based on conditional copulas and goodness-of-fit (GOF) tests to decide the type of change, and further give the corresponding change analysis. We illustrate our approach with Standard & Poor 500 and Nasdaq indices, and provide dynamic risk measures.Dynamic copula - goodness-of-fit test - change-point - time-varying parameter - VaR - ES

Relation between higher order comoments and dependence structure of equity portfolio

We study a relation between higher order comoments and dependence structure of equity portfolio in the US and UK by relying on a simple portfolio approach where equity portfolios are sorted on the higher order comoments. We find that beta and coskewness are positively related with a copula correlation, whereas cokurtosis is negatively related with it. We also find that beta positively associates with an asymmetric tail dependence whilst coskewness negatively associates with it. Furthermore, two extreme equity portfolios sorted on the higher order comoments are closely correlated and their dependence structure is strongly time varying and nonlinear. Backtesting results of value-at-risk and expected shortfall demonstrate the importance of dynamic modeling of asymmetric tail dependence in the risk management of extreme events