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The Marginal Cost of Risk, Risk Measures, and Capital Allocation

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  • Daniel Bauer

    (Department of Risk Management and Insurance, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303)

  • George Zanjani

    (Department of Risk Management and Insurance, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303)

Abstract

Financial institutions use risk measures to calculate the marginal capital cost when expanding the exposure to a certain risk within their portfolio. We reverse this approach by calculating the marginal cost based on economic fundamentals for a profit-maximizing firm and then by identifying the risk measure delivering the correct marginal cost. The resulting measure depends on context. Whereas familiar measures can be recovered in some circumstances, other circumstances yield unfamiliar forms. In all cases, the risk preferences of the institution’s claimants determine how the correct risk measure must weight various default states. Our results demonstrate that risk measures used for pricing and performance measurement should be chosen based on economic fundamentals and may not necessarily adhere to the mathematical properties typically imposed in the literature. This paper was accepted by Jerome B. Detemple, finance .

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Bauer & George Zanjani, 2016. "The Marginal Cost of Risk, Risk Measures, and Capital Allocation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(5), pages 1431-1457, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:62:y:2016:i:5:p:1431-1457
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2015.2190
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Wei Wang & Huifu Xu, 2023. "Preference robust distortion risk measure and its application," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 389-434, April.
    3. N. V. Gribkova & J. Su & R. Zitikis, 2022. "Empirical tail conditional allocation and its consistency under minimal assumptions," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 74(4), pages 713-735, August.
    4. Margherita Giuzio & Sandra Paterlini, 2019. "Un-diversifying during crises: Is it a good idea?," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 401-432, July.
    5. Bauer, Daniel & Kamiya, Shinichi & Ping, Xiaohu & Zanjani, George, 2019. "Dynamic capital allocation with irreversible investments," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 138-152.
    6. Boonen, Tim J., 2019. "Equilibrium recoveries in insurance markets with limited liability," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 38-45.
    7. Cosimo Munari & Stefan Weber & Lutz Wilhelmy, 2023. "Capital requirements and claims recovery: A new perspective on solvency regulation," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(2), pages 329-380, June.
    8. Schosser, Josef, 2019. "Consistency between principal and agent with differing time horizons: Computing incentives under risk," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(3), pages 1113-1123.
    9. Mohammed, Nawaf & Furman, Edward & Su, Jianxi, 2021. "Can a regulatory risk measure induce profit-maximizing risk capital allocations? The case of conditional tail expectation," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(PB), pages 425-436.
    10. Christoph Frei, 2020. "A New Approach to Risk Attribution and Its Application in Credit Risk Analysis," Risks, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-13, June.
    11. Roger J. A. Laeven & Emanuela Rosazza Gianin & Marco Zullino, 2024. "Geometric BSDEs," Papers 2405.09260, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    12. Bauer, Daniel & Zanjani, George, 2021. "Economic capital and RAROC in a dynamic model," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    13. Nawaf Mohammed & Edward Furman & Jianxi Su, 2021. "Can a regulatory risk measure induce profit-maximizing risk capital allocations? The case of Conditional Tail Expectation," Papers 2102.05003, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.
    14. Gómez, Fabio & Tang, Qihe & Tong, Zhiwei, 2022. "The gradient allocation principle based on the higher moment risk measure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    15. Aigner, Philipp & Schlütter, Sebastian, 2023. "Enhancing gradient capital allocation with orthogonal convexity scenarios," ICIR Working Paper Series 47/23, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    16. Roger J. A. Laeven & Emanuela Rosazza Gianin, 2022. "Quasi-Logconvex Measures of Risk," Papers 2208.07694, arXiv.org.

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