Gains from diversification: a regret theory approach

In this paper we analyze a regret-averse individual best choice in a two risky assets portfolio. We extend previous literature and contribute new results by considering a model with two assets. We get the conditions for the regret-averse investor to diversify the portfolio. We additionally compare the behavior of the regret-averse investor with the behavior of its risk-averse counterpart. We characterize the conditions under which both types of agents behavior coincide.optimization; diversification; regret theory; quadrant dependent.

Flight to quality and bailouts : policy remarks and a literature review

October 9, 200

Dynamic asset allocation for bank under stochastic interest rates.

This paper considers the optimal asset allocation strategy for bank with stochastic interest rates when there are three types of asset: Bank account, loans and securities. The asset allocation problem is to maximize the expected utility from terminal wealth of a bank's shareholders over a finite time horizon. As a consequence, we apply a dynamic programming principle to solve the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation explicitly in the case of the CRRA utility function. A case study is given to illustrate our results and to analyze the effect of the parameters on the optimal asset allocation strategy

Estimating the cost of deposit insurance for a commercial bank following an optimal investment strategy

>Magister Scientiae - MScCommercial banks play a dominant role in facilitating the economic growth of a country by acting as an intermediary between the de cit spending unit (borrowers) and the surplus spending unit (lenders). In particular, they transform short-term deposits into medium and long-term loans. Due to their important role in the economy and the nancial system as a whole, commercial banks are subject to high regulation standards in most countries. According to an international set of capital standards known as the Basel Accords, banks are required to hold a minimum level of capital as a bu er to protect their depositors and the nancial market in an event of severe unexpected losses caused by nancial risk. Moreover, government regulators aim to maintain public con dence and trust in the banking system through the use of a deposit insurance scheme (DIS). Deposit insurance (DI) has the e ect of eliminating mass withdrawals of deposits in an event of a bank failure. However, DI comes at a cost. The insuring agent is tasked with estimating a fairly priced premium that the bank should be charged for DI

Policy Responses during the Depth of the 2007- 09 Financial Crisis: Instrument Innovations, Executive Reconfigurations, and Legacies for U.S. Governance

The period September 2008 - March 2009 encompassed that part of the long-festering financial crisis severe enough to leave troubling legacies for the conduct of economic policies. Executive discretion in economic governance hurriedly expanded and centralized to address the depth of the crisis. The U.S. Department of the Treasury (i.e., the Treasury), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) acting in tandem, freely exercised emergency authority to prop up the financial system. This paper shows these interventions to have short-run benefits and long-run costs for market efficiency and stability.

Mathematical models for optimal management of bank capital, reserves and liquidity

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThe aim of this study is to construct and propose continuous-time mathematical models for optimal management of bank capital, reserves and liquidity. This aim emanates from the global financial crisis of 2007 − 2009. In this regard and as a first task, our objective is to determine an optimal investment strategy for a commercial bank subject to capital requirements as prescribed by the Basel III Accord. In particular, the objective of the aforementioned problem is to maximize the expected return on the bank capital portfolio and minimize the variance of the terminal wealth. We apply classical tools from stochastic analysis to achieve the optimal strategy of a benchmark portfolio selection problem which minimizes the expected quadratic distance of the terminal risk capital reserves from a predefined benchmark. Secondly, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) introduced strategies to protect banks from running out of liquidity. These measures included an increase of the minimum reserves that the bank ought to hold, in response to the global financial crisis. We propose a model to minimize risk for a bank by finding an appropriate mix of diversification, balanced against return on the portfolio. Thirdly and finally, in response to the financial crises, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) designed a set of precautionary measures (known as Basel III) for liquidity imposed on banks and one of its purposes is to protect the economy from deteriorating. Recently, bank regulators wanted banks to depend on sources such as core deposits and long-term funding from small businesses and less on short-term wholesale funding

Optimal asset allocation and capital adequacy management strategies for Basel III compliant banks

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDIn this thesis we study a range of related commercial banking problems in discrete and continuous time settings. The first problem is about a capital allocation strategy that optimizes the expected future value of a commercial bank’s total non-risk-weighted assets (TNRWAs) in terms of terminal time utility maximization. This entails finding optimal amounts of Total capital for investment in different bank assets. Based on the optimal capital allocation strategy derived for the first problem, we derive stochastic models for respectively the bank’s capital adequacy and liquidity ratios in the second and third problems. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) introduced these ratios in an attempt to improve the regulation of the international banking industry in terms of capital adequacy and liquidity management. As a fourth problem we derive a multi-period deposit insurance pricing model which incorporates the optimal capital allocation strategy, the BCBS’ latest capital standard, capital forbearance and moral hazard. In the fifth and final problem we show how the values of LIBOR-in-arrears and vanilla interest rate swaps, typically used by commercial banks and other financial institutions to reduce risk, can be derived under a specialized version of the affine interest rate model originally considered by the bank in question. More specifically, in the first problem we assume that the bank invests its Total capital in a stochastic interest rate financial market consisting of three assets, viz., a treasury security, a marketable security and a loan. We assume that the interest rate in the market is described by an affine model, and that the value of the loan follows a jump-diffusion process. We wish to find the optimal capital allocation strategy that maximizes an expected logarithmic utility of the bank’s TNRWAs at a future date. Generally, analytical solutions to stochastic optimal control problems in the jump setting are very difficult to obtain. We propose an approximation method that exploits a similarity between the forms of the control problems of the jump-diffusion model and the diffusion model obtained by removing the jump. With the jump assumed sufficiently small, the analytical solution of the diffusion model then serves as a proxy to the solution of the control problem with the jump. In the second problem we construct models for the bank’s capital adequacy ratios in terms of the proxy. We present numerical simulations to characterize the behaviour of the capital adequacy ratios. Furthermore, in this chapter, we consider the approximate optimal capital allocation strategy subject to a constant Leverage Ratio, which is a specific non-risk-based capital adequacy ratio, at the minimum prescribed level. We derive a formula for the bank’s TNRWAs at constant (minimum) Leverage Ratio value and present numerical simulations based on the modified TNRWAs formula. In the third problem we model the bank’s liquidity ratios and we monitor the levels of the liquidity ratios under the proxy numerically. In the fourth problem we derive a multi-period deposit insurance pricing model, the latest capital standard a la Basel III, capital forbearance and moral hazard behaviour. The deposit insurance pricing method utilizes an asset value reset rule comparable to the typical practice of insolvency resolution by insuring agencies. We perform numerical computations with our model to study its implications. In the final problem, we specialize the affine interest rate model considered previously to the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) interest rate dynamic. We consider fixed-for-floating interest rate swaps under the CIR model. We show how analytical expressions for the values of both a LIBOR-in-arrears swap and a vanilla swap can be derived using a Green’s function approach. We employ Monte Carlo simulation methods to compute the values of the swaps for different scenarios. We wish to make explicit the contributions of this project to the literature. A research article titled “An Optimal Portfolio and Capital Management Strategy for Basel III Compliant Commercial Banks” by Grant E. Muller and Peter J. Witbooi [1] has been published in an accredited scientific journal. In the aforementioned paper we solve an optimal capital allocation problem for diffusion banking models. We propose using the solution of the Brownian motions control problem of [1] as the proxy in problems two to four of this thesis. Furthermore, we wish to note that the methodology employed on the final problem of this study is actually from the paper [2] of Mallier and Alobaidi. In the paper [2] the authors did not present simulation studies to characterize their pricing models. We contribute a simulation study in which the values of the swaps are computed via Monte Carlo simulation methods

Stochastic modelling in bank management and optimization of bank asset allocation

>Magister Scientiae - MScThe Basel Committee published its proposals for a revised capital adequacy framework(the Basel II Capital Accord) in June 2006. One of the main objectives of this framework is to improve the incentives for state-of-the-art risk management in banking, especially in the area of credit risk in view of Basel II. The new regulation seeks to provide incentives for greater awareness of differences in risk through more risk-sensitive minimum capital requirements based on numerical formulas. This attempt to control bank behaviour has a heavy reliance on regulatory ratios like the risk-based capital adequacy ratio (CAR). In essence, such ratios compare the capital that a bank holds to the level of credit, market and operational risk that it bears. Due to this fact the objectives in this dissertation are as follows. Firstly, in an attempt to address these problems and under assumptions about retained earnings, loan-loss reserves, the market and shareholder-bank owner relationships, we construct continuous-time models of the risk-based CAR which is computed from credit and market risk-weighted assets (RWAs) and bank regulatory capital (BRC) in a stochastic setting. Secondly, we demonstrate how the CAR can be optimized in terms of equity allocation. Here, we employ dynamic programming for stochastic optimization, to obtain and verify the results. Thirdly, an important feature of this study is that we apply the mean-variance approach to obtain an optimal strategy that diversifies a portfolio consisting of three assets. In particular, chapter 5 is an original piece of work by the author of this dissertation where we demonstrate how to employ a mean-variance optimization approach to equity allocation under certain conditions

Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on January 27– 28, 2009

A joint meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee and Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System was held in the offices of the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, at 1:30 p.m. and continued on Wednesday, January 28, 2009, at 9:00 a.m

Approaches to monetary policy revisited - lessons from the crisis, 6th ECB Central Banking Conference, 18-19 November 2010

This volume contains a collection of papers, commentaries and speeches that review the strategic and operational decisions taken by the central banks to combat the crisis and that reflect on the lessons for the future. The contributions are grouped around five broad topics: monetary policy strategy, lessons from historical experiences, challenges for macroeconomic and finance theory, the international dimension of the crisis, and operational frameworks for monetary policy.monetary policy strategy, monetary policy operational framework