Credit Risk and Capital Requirements for the Portuguese Banking System

In this study, an assessment of the impact of Basel II capital requirement rules driven by credit risk of non-financial firms is performed. Intervals of variation for the risk drivers are established such that capital requirements for firms' credit risk under Basel II exceed capital requirements under Basel I. Moreover, a characterization of the Portuguese Banking system, which includes a description of corporate credit and its associated probabilities of default, and the computation of capital requirements are performed.

The interest rate pass-through of the Portuguese banking system: characterization and determinants

Using micro level data, this work characterizes the interest rate pass-through in loan and deposit retail rates of the Portuguese banking system. It concludes that the long-run impact of a change in money market rates on loans is typically around one while it is smaller than one for deposits. Moreover, differences between the long run coefficients for the corporate and household sectors also emerge. Results on the speed of adjustment show that, in general, deposit interest rates adjust faster than loan interest rates. The determinants of the heterogeneous behavior of banks in terms of interest rates’decisions are also studied. Capital and liquidity characteristics of banks turn out to be non-significant while market share proves to contribute to a slower speed of adjustment in both loan and deposit interest rates.

Super-replicating Bounds on European Option Prices when the Underlying Asset is Illiquid

We derive super-replicating bounds on European option prices when the underlying asset is illiquid. Illiquidity is taken as the impossibility of transacting the underlying asset at some points in time, generating market incompleteness. We conclude that option price bounds follow a Black-Scholes partial differential equation where the volatility term is adjusted to reflect different levels of illiquidity.

Market Illiquidity and the Bid-Ask Spread of Derivatives

This paper analyzes the impact of illiquidity of a stock on the pricing of derivatives. In particular, it is shown how illiquidity generates a bid-ask spread in an option on this stock, even in the absence of other imperfections, such as transaction costs and asymmetry of information. Moreover, the spread is shown to be asymmetric with respect to the option price under perfect liquidity. This fact explains the appearance of a smile effect when the implied volatility is estimated from the mid-quote.N/