Macro-financial vulnerabilities and future financial stress - Assessing systemic risks and predicting systemic events

This paper develops a framework for assessing systemic risks and for predicting (out-of-sample) systemic events, i.e. periods of extreme financial instability with potential real costs. We test the ability of a wide range of “stand alone” and composite indicators in predicting systemic events and evaluate them by taking into account policy makers’ preferences between false alarms and missing signals. Our results highlight the importance of considering jointly various indicators in a multivariate framework. We find that taking into account jointly domestic and global macro-financial vulnerabilities greatly improves the performance of discrete choice models in forecasting systemic events. Our framework shows a good out-of-sample performance in predicting the last financial crisis. Finally, our model would have issued an early warning signal for the United States in 2006Q2, 5 quarters before the emergence of money markets tensions in August 2007.early warning indicators; asset price booms and busts; financial stress; macro-prudential policies

Macro-financial vulnerabilities and future financial stress: assessing systemic risks and predicting systemic events

This paper develops a framework for assessing systemic risks and for predicting (out-of-sample) systemic events, i.e. periods of extreme financial instability with potential real costs. We test the ability of a wide range of “stand alone” and composite indicators in predicting systemic events and evaluate them by taking into account policy makers’ preferences between false alarms and missing signals. Our results highlight the importance of considering jointly various indicators in a multivariate framework. We find that taking into account jointly domestic and global macrofinancial vulnerabilities greatly improves the performance of discrete choice models in forecasting systemic events. Our framework shows a good out-of-sample performance in predicting the last financial crisis. Finally, our model would have issued an early warning signal for the United States in 2006 Q2, 5 quarters before the emergence of money markets tensions in August 2007. JEL Classification: E44, E58, F01, F37, G01Asset Price Booms and Busts, Early Warning Indicators, Financial stress, Macro-Prudential Policies

Cross-border bank contagion in Europe

This paper analyses cross-border contagion in a sample of European banks from January 1994 to January 2003. We use a multinomial logit model to estimate the number of banks in a given country that experience a large shock on the same day (“coexceedances”) as a function of variables measuring common shocks and coexceedances in other countries. Large shocks are measured by the bottom 95th percentile of the distribution of the first difference in the daily distance to default of the bank. We find evidence in favour of significant cross-border contagion. We also find some evidence that since the introduction of the euro cross-border contagion may have increased. The results seem to be very robust to changes in the specification

Monetary policy and risk taking : [draft january 2013]

We assess the effects of monetary policy on bank risk to verify the existence of a risk-taking channel - monetary expansions inducing banks to assume more risk. We first present VAR evidence confirming that this channel exists and tends to concentrate on the bank funding side. Then, to rationalize this evidence we build a macro model where banks subject to runs endogenously choose their funding structure (deposits vs. capital) and risk level. A monetary expansion increases bank leverage and risk. In turn, higher bank risk in steady state increases asset price volatility and reduces equilibrium output

Monitoraggio della rete d'accesso UMTS/HSPA basato su reti neurali

La tecnologia HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) rappresenta un’evoluzione della tecnologia mobile UMTS in grado di consentire download ad elevato bitrate. Al fine di controllare il corretto funzionamento dell’infrastruttura di accesso UMTS/HSDPA sul territorio italiano, nonché di pianificare gli ampliamenti necessari a fronteggiare la crescita del traffico mobile, è a disposizione dei tecnici Telecom una grande quantità di dati statistici provenienti da contatori presenti su ciascun apparato di rete (Base Station, RNC, etc.). Si pone pertanto un tipico problema di Data Mining: a partire da una gran mole di dati, si vogliono estrarre informazioni sintetiche attraverso metodi automatici o semiautomatici. Tale progetto si pone come obiettivo l’elaborazione di un metodo per il monitoraggio delle criticità nella rete di accesso UMTS/HSDPA di Telecom Italia effettuato tramite l’utilizzo di reti neurali

Risk, Uncertainty and Monetary Policy

The VIX, the stock market option-based implied volatility, strongly co-moves with measures of the monetary policy stance. When decomposing the VIX into two components, a proxy for risk aversion and expected stock market volatility (“uncertainty”), we find that a lax monetary policy decreases both risk aversion and uncertainty, with the former effect being stronger. The result holds in a structural vector autoregressive framework, controlling for business cycle movements and using a variety of identification schemes for the vector autoregression in general and monetary policy shocks in particular.

Cross-border bank contagion in Europe

This paper analyses cross-border contagion in a sample of European banks from January 1994 to January 2003. We use a multinomial logit model to estimate the number of banks in a given country that experience a large shock on the same day (“coexceedances”) as a function of variables measuring common shocks and lagged coexceedances in other countries. Large shocks are measured by the bottom 95th percentile of the distribution of the daily percentage change in the distance to default of the bank. We find evidence in favour of significant cross-border contagion. We also find some evidence that since the introduction of the euro cross-border contagion may have increased. The results seem to be very robust to changes in the specification. JEL Classification: G21, F36, G15banking, Contagion, Distance to default, Multinomial logit model

Country and industry equity risk premia in the euro area: an intertemporal approach

This paper provides new evidence on the dynamics of equity risk premia in euro area stock markets across country and industry portfolios. We develop and estimate a conditional intertemporal CAPM where returns on aggregate euro area, country and industry portfolios depend on the market risk as well as on the risk that the investment opportunity set changes over time. Prices of risks are time-varying, according to a Kalman filter approach. We find that both market and intertemporal risks are significantly priced. When we include country and industry-specific risk factors they turn out to be not significantly priced for most industries, suggesting that euro area equity markets are well integrated. Overall, the analysis indicates that omitting the intertemporal factor leads to mispricing and misleading conclusions regarding the degree of financial integration across sectors and countries. JEL Classification: G12, F37, C32conditional asset pricing, financial integration, intertemporal risk, Kalman filter, multivariate GARCH

The effect of G20 summits on global financial markets

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the G20 has become the most important forum of global governance and cooperation, largely replacing the once powerful G7. In this paper we run an event study to test whether G20 meetings at ministerial and Leaders level have had an impact on global financial markets. We focus on the period from 2007 to 2013, looking at equity returns, bond yields and measures of market risk such as implied volatility, skewness and kurtosis. Our main finding is that G20 summits have not had a strong, consistent and durable effect on any of the markets that we consider, suggesting that the information and decision content of G20 summits is of limited relevance for market participants

Modeling euro area bond yields using a time-varying factor model

In this paper, we study the dynamics and drivers of sovereign bond yields in euro area countries using a factor model with time-varying loading coefficients and stochastic volatility, which allows for capturing changes in the pricing mechanism of bond yields. Our key contribution is exploring both the global and the local dimensions of bond yield determinants in individual euro area countries using a time-varying model. Using the reduced form results, we show decoupling of periphery euro area bond yields from the core countries yields following the financial crisis and the scope of their subsequent re-integration. In addition, by means of the structural analysis based on identification via sign restrictions, we present time varying impulse responses of bond yields to EA and US monetary policy shocks and to confidence shocks