IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2001-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How accurate are Value-at-Risk models at commercial banks?

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy Berkowitz
  • James M. O'Brien

Abstract

In recent years, the trading accounts at large commercial banks have grown substantially and become progressively more diverse and complex. We provide descriptive statistics on the trading revenues from such activities and on the associated Value-at-Risk forecasts internally estimated by banks. For a sample of large bank holding companies, we evaluate the performance of banks' trading risk models by examining the statistical accuracy of the VaR forecasts. Although a substantial literature has examined the statistical and economic meaning of Value-at-Risk models, this article is the first to provide a detailed analysis of the performance of models actually in use.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Berkowitz & James M. O'Brien, 2001. "How accurate are Value-at-Risk models at commercial banks?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-31, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2001-31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200131/200131abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2001/200131/200131pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francis X. Diebold & Todd A. Gunther & Anthony S. Tay, "undated". "Evaluating Density Forecasts," CARESS Working Papres 97-18, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
    2. Darryll Hendricks, 1996. "Evaluation of value-at-risk models using historical data," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 2(Apr), pages 39-69.
    3. Basak, Suleyman & Shapiro, Alexander, 2001. "Value-at-Risk-Based Risk Management: Optimal Policies and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 371-405.
    4. Paul H. Kupiec, 1995. "Techniques for verifying the accuracy of risk measurement models," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 95-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. M.J.B. Hall, 1996. "The amendment to the capital accord to incorporate market risk," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 49(197), pages 271-277.
    6. Matthew Pritsker, 1997. "Evaluating Value at Risk Methodologies: Accuracy versus Computational Time," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 12(2), pages 201-242, October.
    7. Peter F. Christoffersen & Francis X. Diebold, 2000. "How Relevant is Volatility Forecasting for Financial Risk Management?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 12-22, February.
    8. Gray, Stephen F., 1996. "Modeling the conditional distribution of interest rates as a regime-switching process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 27-62, September.
    9. Dimson, Elroy & Marsh, Paul, 1995. "Capital Requirements for Securities Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 821-851, July.
    10. Robert F. Engle & Simone Manganelli, 2004. "CAViaR: Conditional Autoregressive Value at Risk by Regression Quantiles," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 367-381, October.
    11. Christoffersen, Peter F, 1998. "Evaluating Interval Forecasts," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 841-862, November.
    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. McAleer, Michael & Jimenez-Martin, Juan-Angel & Perez-Amaral, Teodosio, 2013. "GFC-robust risk management strategies under the Basel Accord," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 97-111.
    2. Casarin, Roberto & Chang, Chia-Lin & Jimenez-Martin, Juan-Angel & McAleer, Michael & Pérez-Amaral, Teodosio, 2013. "Risk management of risk under the Basel Accord: A Bayesian approach to forecasting Value-at-Risk of VIX futures," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 183-204.
    3. McAleer, Michael & Jimenez-Martin, Juan-Angel & Perez-Amaral, Teodosio, 2013. "Has the Basel Accord improved risk management during the global financial crisis?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 250-265.
    4. Chang, Chia-Lin & Jiménez-Martín, Juan-Ángel & Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Pérez-Amaral, Teodosio, 2015. "A stochastic dominance approach to financial risk management strategies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(2), pages 472-485.
    5. Matthew Pritsker, 2001. "The hidden dangers of historical simulation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-27, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Christian A.Johnson, 2001. "Value at risk: teoría y aplicaciones," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 28(2 Year 20), pages 217-247, December.

    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. Peter Christoffersen, 2004. "Backtesting Value-at-Risk: A Duration-Based Approach," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 84-108.
    2. Matthew Pritsker, 2001. "The hidden dangers of historical simulation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-27, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Jose A. Lopez, 1999. "Methods for evaluating value-at-risk estimates," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 3-17.
    4. Jose A. Lopez, 1996. "Regulatory Evaluation of Value-at-Risk Models," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 96-51, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    5. Guermat, Cherif & Harris, Richard D. F., 2002. "Forecasting value at risk allowing for time variation in the variance and kurtosis of portfolio returns," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 409-419.
    6. El Bouhadi, Abdelhamid & Achibane, Khalid, 2009. "The Predictive Power of Conditional Models: What Lessons to Draw with Financial Crisis in the Case of Pre-Emerging Capital Markets?," MPRA Paper 19482, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Jeremy Berkowitz & James O'Brien, 2002. "How Accurate Are Value‐at‐Risk Models at Commercial Banks?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1093-1111, June.
    8. Pritsker, Matthew, 2006. "The hidden dangers of historical simulation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 561-582, February.
    9. Gregory, Allan W. & Reeves, Jonathan J., 2008. "Interpreting Value at Risk (VaR) forecasts," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 167-176, June.
    10. Patra, Saswat, 2021. "Revisiting value-at-risk and expected shortfall in oil markets under structural breaks: The role of fat-tailed distributions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    11. Christophe Boucher & Benjamin Hamidi & Patrick Kouontchou & Bertrand Maillet, 2012. "Une évaluation économique du risque de modèle pour les investisseurs de long terme," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 63(3), pages 591-600.
    12. Gaglianone, Wagner Piazza & Lima, Luiz Renato & Linton, Oliver & Smith, Daniel R., 2011. "Evaluating Value-at-Risk Models via Quantile Regression," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(1), pages 150-160.
    13. Gonzalo Cortazar & Alejandro Bernales & Diether Beuermann, 2005. "Methodology and Implementation of Value-at-Risk Measures in Emerging Fixed-Income Markets with Infrequent Trading," Finance 0512030, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Azizpour, S & Giesecke, K. & Schwenkler, G., 2018. "Exploring the sources of default clustering," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 154-183.
    15. Jeremy Berkowitz & Peter Christoffersen & Denis Pelletier, 2011. "Evaluating Value-at-Risk Models with Desk-Level Data," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(12), pages 2213-2227, December.
    16. Chrétien, Stéphane & Coggins, Frank, 2010. "Performance and conservatism of monthly FHS VaR: An international investigation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 323-333, December.
    17. Boucher, Christophe M. & Daníelsson, Jón & Kouontchou, Patrick S. & Maillet, Bertrand B., 2014. "Risk models-at-risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 72-92.
    18. Colletaz, Gilbert & Hurlin, Christophe & Pérignon, Christophe, 2013. "The Risk Map: A new tool for validating risk models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 3843-3854.
    19. Zhang, Bangzheng & Wei, Yu & Yu, Jiang & Lai, Xiaodong & Peng, Zhenfeng, 2014. "Forecasting VaR and ES of stock index portfolio: A Vine copula method," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 416(C), pages 112-124.
    20. Wai Yan Cheng & Michael Chak Sham Wong & Clement Yuk Pang Wong, 2003. "Market risk management of banks: implications from the accuracy of Value-at-Risk forecasts," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 23-33.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk; Econometric models;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedgfe:2001-31. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.