Term Structure and Cyclicity of Value-at-Risk: Consequences for the Solvency Capital Requirement

This paper explores empirically the link between French equities returns Value-at-Risk (VaR) and the state of financial markets cycle. The econometric analysis is based on a simple vector autoregression setup. Using quarterly data from 1970Q4 to 2008Q3, it turns out that the k-year VaR of French equities is strongly dependent on the cycle phase: the expected losses as measured by the VaR are twice smaller in recession times than expansion periods. These results strongly suggest that the European rules regarding the solvency capital requirements for insurance companies should adapt to the state of the financial market’s cycle. To this end, we propose a cycle-dependent measure of the Solvency Capital Requirement.expected equities returns, Value at Risk, investment horizon, vector auto-regression

Cyclicality and Term Structure of Value-at-Risk in Europe

This paper explores empirically the link between stocks returns Value-at-Risk (VaR) and the state of financial markets cycle. The econometric analysis is based on a simple vector autoregression setup. Using quarterly data from 1970Q4 to 2008Q4 for France, Germany and the United-Kingdom, it turns out that the k-year VaR of equities is actually dependent on the cycle phase: the expected losses as measured by the VaR are smaller in recession times than expansion periods, whatever the country and the horizon. These results strongly suggest that the European rules regarding the solvency capital requirements for insurance companies should adapt to the state of the financial market’s cycle.

Federal Funds Rate Stationarity: New Evidence

This paper investigates the stationarity of the Federal Funds Rate. It contributes to the existing empirical literature in two ways. First, it explores both the presence of unit root and structural changes in the federal funds rate monthly data, by allowing for interaction between these two assumptions as suggested by the recent work of Lee and Strazicich. The second contribution consists in testing formally for the number of breaks. Using monthly data from January 1960 to April 2008, we find strong evidence in favor of a stationary process with two breaks. The two breaks identified correspond respectively to the first oil shock and to the change in the Fed operating procedure in the early eighties.

Assets Returns Volatility and Investment Horizon: The French Case

This paper explores French assets returns predictability within a VAR setup. Using quarterly data from 1970Q4 to 2006Q4, it turns out that bonds, equities and bills returns are actually predictable. This feature implies that the investment horizon does indeed matter in the asset allocation. The VAR parameters estimates are then used to compute real returns conditional volatility across investment horizons. The results reveal the same kind of horizon effect as the one found in recent empirical studies using quarterly U.S. data. More specifically, the excess annualized standard deviation of French stocks returns with respect to bills and bonds returns decreases as the investment horizon grows. They suggest that long-horizon investors overstate the share of bonds in their portfolio choice when neglecting the horizon effect on risk of asset returns predictability.asset return predictability, investment horizon, vector autoregression

Impulsions dominantes et analyse des fluctuations de l’économie française

L’approche des impulsions dominantes, dans la tradition de Brunner et Meltzer [1978], considère que les fluctuations économiques conjoncturelles sont dues à la composante non anticipée d’un ensemble d’impulsions explicites domestiques et étrangères. Bien que s’inscrivant dans cette approche, notre étude se propose de la reformuler dans un cadre statistique plus performant en utilisant les développements récents de l’économétrie des séries temporelles. L’analyse d’un modèle VAR incluant le PIB en volume, son déflateur, un agrégat monétaire, un indicateur des actions gouvernementales en matière de politique budgétaire, le prix des importations et la demande étrangère plaide en faveur d’une explication en termes d’impulsions multiples des fluctuations de l’économie française à court terme, et souligne l’importance de la prise en compte des chocs étrangers, et plus particulièrement des chocs de demande étrangère.Following Brunner and Meltzer [1978], the dominant impulses hypothesis attributes the business cycles to the unanticipated component of a set of explicit home and foreign impulses. While maintaining this frame, our study departs from this approach by using a more sophisticated statistical methodology recently developped in the field of time series econometrics. The analysis of a VAR model including real GDP, its price deflator, a monetary aggregate, an indicator of fiscal policy, the import price index and the foreign demand, supports an explanation of the French economic fluctuations in terms of multiple impulses in the short run. More precisely, it underlines the necessity of taking foreign impulses into account, the foreign demand shock dominating the foreign price impulse

Impulsions dominantes et analyse des fluctuations de l’économie française

Following Brunner and Meltzer [1978], the dominant impulses hypothesis attributes the business cycles to the unanticipated component of a set of explicit home and foreign impulses. While maintaining this frame, our study departs from this approach by using a more sophisticated statistical methodology recently developped in the field of time series econometrics. The analysis of a VAR model including real GDP, its price deflator, a monetary aggregate, an indicator of fiscal policy, the import price index and the foreign demand, supports an explanation of the French economic fluctuations in terms of multiple impulses in the short run. More precisely, it underlines the necessity of taking foreign impulses into account, the foreign demand shock dominating the foreign price impulse. L’approche des impulsions dominantes, dans la tradition de Brunner et Meltzer [1978], considère que les fluctuations économiques conjoncturelles sont dues à la composante non anticipée d’un ensemble d’impulsions explicites domestiques et étrangères. Bien que s’inscrivant dans cette approche, notre étude se propose de la reformuler dans un cadre statistique plus performant en utilisant les développements récents de l’économétrie des séries temporelles. L’analyse d’un modèle VAR incluant le PIB en volume, son déflateur, un agrégat monétaire, un indicateur des actions gouvernementales en matière de politique budgétaire, le prix des importations et la demande étrangère plaide en faveur d’une explication en termes d’impulsions multiples des fluctuations de l’économie française à court terme, et souligne l’importance de la prise en compte des chocs étrangers, et plus particulièrement des chocs de demande étrangère.

The European Way Out of Recessions

This paper proposes a two-regime Bounce-Back Function augmented Self-Exciting Threshold AutoRegression (SETAR) which allows for various shapes of recoveries from the recession regime. It relies on the bounce-back effects first analyzed in a Markov-Switching setup by Kim, Morley and Piger [2005] and recently extended by Bec, Bouabdallah and Ferrara [2011a]. This approach is then applied to post-1973 quarterly growth rates of French, German, Italian, Spanish and Euro area real GDPs. Both the linear autoregression and the standard SETAR without bounce-back effect null hypotheses are strongly rejected against the Bounce-Back augmented SETAR alternative in all cases but Italy. The relevance of our proposed model is further assessed by the comparison of its short-term forecasting performances with the ones obtained from a linear autoregression and a standard SETAR. It turns out that the bounce-back models one-step ahead forecasts generally outperform the other ones, and particularly so during the last recovery period in 2009Q3-2010Q4.Threshold autoregression, bounce-back effects, asymmetric business cycles. JEL classification: E32, C22.

Purchasing power parity: A nonlinear multivariate perspective

The goal of this paper is to disentangle the respective contributions of the nominal exchange rate and the price differential to the adjustment towards the Purchasing Power Parity relation. To this end, we estimate a multivariate threshold vector equilibrium correction model, whose dynamics is consistent with the PPP in presence of trading costs. European data support the relevance of this model for Belgium, France and Italy, but this is not the case for the G7 data against the US Dollar. Furthermore, the adjustment in European countries seems to have been achieved only through nominal exchange rate changes.

Assets returns volatility and investment horizon: the french case

This paper explores French assets returns predictability within a VAR setup. Using quarterly data from 1970Q4 to 2006Q4, it turns out that bonds, equities and bills returns are actually predictable. This feature implies that the investment horizon does indeed matter in the asset allocation. The VAR parameters estimates are then used to compute real returns conditional volatility across investment horizons. The results reveal the same kind of horizon effect as the one found in recent empirical studies using quarterly U.S. data. More specifically, the excess annualized standard deviation of French stocks returns with respect to bills and bonds returns decreases as the investment horizon grows. They suggest that long-horizon investors overstate the share of bonds in their portfolio choice when neglecting the horizon effect on risk of asset returns predictability