Three types of agents acting on different information sets are considered: fully informed agents, insiders, and outsiders. Differences in information quality are shown to affect the properties of their optimal portfolios. For an outsider, the share of wealth invested in the stock is decreasing...

We introduce an adaptive importance sampling method for the loss distribution of credit portfolios based on the Robbins-Monro stochastic approximation procedure. After presenting the subtle construction of the algorithm, we apply our adaptive scheme for calculating the risk figures of a typical...

In June 2003 Swiss banks held over CHF 500 billion in mortgages. This important segment accounts for about 63% of all loan portfolios of Swiss banks. Since default insurance is not common in Switzerland, the corresponding risks are a severe threat for the health of the financial system. We...

The paper investigates how buyer-supplier firm-specific relationships affect security prices. Starting from the empirical inconsistencies associated with some standard structural models we propose a structural model of firm dependence in a vertically connected network of firms based on cash flow...

Economic cycles are the key credit portfolio risk driver and they are autocorrelated over time. We then show that it is economically meaningful to define risk for credit portfolios in a multi period setup. Since one period expected shortfall fails to measure risk adequately in a multi period...

We consider optimization problems for minimizing conditional value atrisk (CVaR) from a computational point of view, with an emphasis on financial applications. As a general solution approach, we suggest to reformulate these CVaR optimization problems as twostage recourse problems of stochastic...

This paper analyzes the important time variation in U.S. aggregate portfolio allocations. To do so, we first use flexible descriptions of preferences and investment opportunities to derive optimal decision rules that nest tactical, myopic, and strategic portfolio allocations. We then compare...

This paper analyzes the expected life-time utility and the hedging demands in an exchange only, representative agent general equilibrium under incomplete information. We derive an expression for the investor’s expected life-time utility, and analyze his hedging demands for intertemporal changes...

This paper analyzes the relation between agency conflicts and risk management in a contingent claims model of the firm. In contrast to previous contributions, our analysis incorporates not only stockholder-debtholder conflicts but also managerstockholder conflicts. In particular we consider a...