IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bca/bocawp/03-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Does the Risk-Appetite Index Measure?

Author

Listed:
  • Miroslav Misina

Abstract

Explanations of changes in asset prices as being due to exogenous changes in risk appetite, although arguably controversial, have been popular in the financial community and have also received some attention in attempts to account for recent financial crises. Operational versions of these explanations are based on the assumption that changes in asset prices can be decomposed into a part that can be attributed to changes in riskiness and a part attributable to changes in risk aversion, and that some quantitative measure can capture these effects in isolation. One such measure, the risk-appetite index (RAI)-- used in the financial community as well as in assessments of financial stability in emerging markets -- is based on the rank correlation between assets' riskiness and excess returns. The author seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for this measure. He summarizes the arguments behind the index in two propositions and attempts to derive these propositions within a class of well-specified asset-pricing models. His results indicate that, whereas the exclusive attribution of the rank effect to changes in risk aversion is problematic in general, a specific set of circumstances can be identified in which this attribution is permissible. The key assumption is identified, and its empirical implications are examined. In cases where this assumption is shown to be empirically valid, the model provides a theoretical foundation for the RAI.

Suggested Citation

  • Miroslav Misina, 2003. "What Does the Risk-Appetite Index Measure?," Staff Working Papers 03-23, Bank of Canada.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:03-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/wp03-23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manmohan S. Kumar & Avinash Persaud, 2002. "Pure Contagion and Investors’ Shifting Risk Appetite: Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(3), pages 401-436, November.
    2. Danthine, Jean-Pierre & Donaldson, John B. & Giannikos, Christos & Guirguis, Hany, 2004. "On the consequences of state dependent preferences for the pricing of financial assets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 143-153, September.
    3. Miroslav Misina, 2003. "Are Distorted Beliefs Too Good to be True?," Staff Working Papers 03-4, Bank of Canada.
    4. repec:bla:intfin:v:5:y:2002:i:3:p:401-36 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Prasanna Gai & Nicholas Vause, 2006. "Measuring Investors' Risk Appetite," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(1), March.
    2. Otilia MANTA, 2018. "Trends In The Concept Of The Financial Market In The Current Context Of Globalization," Contemporary Economy Journal, Constantin Brancoveanu University, vol. 3(4), pages 114-124.
    3. Daniel O. Beltran & Deepa Dhume Datta & Thiago Revil T. Ferreira & Matteo Iacoviello & Mohammad Jahan-Parvar & Canlin Li & Juan M. Londono & Marius del Giudice Rodriguez & John H. Rogers & Bo Sun, 2017. "Taxonomy of Global Risk, Uncertainty, and Volatility Measures," International Finance Discussion Papers 1216, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Miroslav Misina, 2006. "Benchmark Index of Risk Appetite," Staff Working Papers 06-16, Bank of Canada.
    5. Manolescu, Gheorghe, 2011. "Appetite For Risk Of The Bank (I)," Studii Financiare (Financial Studies), Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 15(2), pages 209-223.
    6. Kristin J. Forbes & Francis E. Warnock, 2012. "Capital Debt -and Equity-Led Capital Flow Episodes," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 676, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Claudio E. V. Borio, 2004. "Market distress and vanishing liquidity: anatomy and policy options," BIS Working Papers 158, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Kristin J. Forbes & Francis E. Warnock, 2014. "Debt-and Equity-Led Capital Flow Episodes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Miguel Fuentes D. & Claudio E. Raddatz & Carmen M. Reinhart (ed.),Capital Mobility and Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 18, chapter 9, pages 291-322, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Marcello Pericoli & Massimo Sbracia, 2009. "Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Risk Appetite Index: Theoretical Differences, Empirical Similarities and Implementation Problems," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 123-150, August.
    10. Tomas Adam & Sona Benecka & Jakub Mateju, 2014. "Risk Aversion, Financial Stress and Their Non-Linear Impact on Exchange Rates," Working Papers 2014/07, Czech National Bank.
    11. Coudert, Virginie & Gex, Mathieu, 2008. "Does risk aversion drive financial crises? Testing the predictive power of empirical indicators," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 167-184, March.
    12. Forbes, Kristin J. & Warnock, Francis E., 2012. "Capital flow waves: Surges, stops, flight, and retrenchment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 235-251.
    13. Monica Billio & Bertrand Maillet & Loriana Pelizzon, 2022. "A meta-measure of performance related to both investors and investments characteristics," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 1405-1447, June.
    14. Marc Boissaux & Jang Schiltz, 2010. "An Optimal Control Approach to Portfolio Optimisation with Conditioning Information," LSF Research Working Paper Series 10-09, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    15. Marcello Pericoli & Massimo Sbracia, 2006. "The CAPM and the risk appetite index; theoretical differences and empirical similarities," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 586, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    16. Riccardo Rebonato, 2006. "Forward-Rate Volatilities And The Swaption Matrix: Why Neither Time-Homogeneity Nor Time-Dependence Are Enough," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(05), pages 705-746.
    17. Julien Chevallier & Mathieu Gatumel & Florian Ielpo, 2014. "Commodity markets through the business cycle," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(9), pages 1597-1618, September.
    18. Miroslav Misina, 2008. "Changing investors' risk appetite: Reality or fiction?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(6), pages 489-501.
    19. Ms. Brenda Gonzalez-Hermosillo & Mr. Vance Martin & Mr. Mardi Dungey & Ms. Renee Fry, 2003. "Characterizing Global Investors' Risk Appetite for Emerging Market Debt During Financial Crises," IMF Working Papers 2003/251, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Birgit Uhlenbrock, 2009. "Financial markets' appetite for risk - and the challenge of assessing its evolution by risk appetite indicators," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Proceedings of the IFC Conference on "Measuring financial innovation and its impact", Basel, 26-27 August 2008, volume 31, pages 221-259, Bank for International Settlements.
    21. Mathieu Gatumel & Florian Ielpo, 2014. "Commodity Markets through the business cycle," Post-Print hal-01302479, HAL.
    22. Jinhui Luo & Philip Saks & Steve Satchell, 2009. "Implementing risk appetite in the management of currency portfolios," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(6), pages 380-397, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miroslav Misina, 2005. "Risk Perceptions and Attitudes," Staff Working Papers 05-17, Bank of Canada.
    2. Mr. David Hauner & Mr. Manmohan S. Kumar, 2005. "Financial Globalization and Fiscal Perfomance in Emerging Markets," IMF Working Papers 2005/212, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Luiz Vitiello & Ser-Huang Poon, 2022. "Option pricing with random risk aversion," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1665-1684, May.
    4. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Nor, Safwan Mohd & Kumar, Ronald Ravinesh & Mensi, Walid, 2017. "Interdependence and contagion among industry-level US credit markets: An application of wavelet and VMD based copula approaches," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 466(C), pages 310-324.
    5. Coudert, Virginie & Gex, Mathieu, 2008. "Does risk aversion drive financial crises? Testing the predictive power of empirical indicators," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 167-184, March.
    6. Bayoumi, Tamim & Fazio, Giorgio & Kumar, Manmohan & MacDonald, Ronald, 2007. "Fatal attraction: Using distance to measure contagion in good times as well as bad," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 259-273.
    7. Misina, Miroslav, 2006. "Equity premium with distorted beliefs: A puzzle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 1431-1440, August.
    8. Islam, Raisul & Volkov, Vladimir, 2020. "Calm before the storm: an early warning approach before and during the COVID-19 crisis," Working Papers 2020-09, University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics.
    9. Felix Kubler & Karl Schmedders, 2010. "Non-parametric counterfactual analysis in dynamic general equilibrium," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 45(1), pages 181-200, October.
    10. Saker Sabkha & Christian Peretti & Dorra Hmaied, 2019. "The Credit Default Swap market contagion during recent crises: international evidence," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 1-46, July.
    11. Danthine, Jean-Pierre & Donaldson, John B. & Giannikos, Christos & Guirguis, Hany, 2004. "On the consequences of state dependent preferences for the pricing of financial assets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 143-153, September.
    12. Prasanna Gai & Nicholas Vause, 2006. "Measuring Investors' Risk Appetite," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(1), March.
    13. Bruno Bonizzi, 2013. "Capital Flows to Emerging Markets: An alternative Theoretical Framework," Working Papers 186, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    14. Dewandaru, Ginanjar & Masih, Rumi & Masih, A. Mansur M., 2016. "What can wavelets unveil about the vulnerabilities of monetary integration? A tale of Eurozone stock markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 981-996.
    15. Falato, Antonio, 2009. "Happiness maintenance and asset prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1247-1262, June.
    16. Sanjay Sehgal & G. S. Sood & Namita Rajput, 2009. "Investor Sentiment in India: A Survey," Vision, , vol. 13(2), pages 13-23, April.
    17. Meng-Shiuh Chang & Meng-Wei Chen & Peijie Ju, 2023. "Asymmetry in Hedges, Safe Havens, Flights and Contagion: Unconditional Quantile Regression Approach," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, November.
    18. Luz Rocío Sotomayor & Abel Cadenillas, 2009. "Explicit Solutions Of Consumption‐Investment Problems In Financial Markets With Regime Switching," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 251-279, April.
    19. Pascal St-Amour, 2004. "Ratchet vs Blasé Investors and Asset Markets," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-11, CIRANO.
    20. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Kefei You, 2017. "Stock Market Integration in Asia: Global or Regional? Evidence from Industry Level Panel Convergence Tests," CESifo Working Paper Series 6494, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic models; Financial markets;

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Avinash Persaud in Wikipedia English

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:03-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bocgvca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.