We study the implications of the value at risk concept for the bank's optimum amount of equity capital under credit risk. The market value of loans is risky and lognormally distributed. We show that the required equity capital depends upon managerial and market factors. Furthermore, the bank's...

Using a two-moment decision model this paper analyzes corporate hedging behavior in the presence of unified and differential income taxation. We start with the well-known result that risk-taking may increase when income tax rates increase and, therefore, the incentive for hedging reduces. We...

Basel II changes risk management in banks strongly. Internal rating procedures would lead one to expect that banks are changing over to active risk control. But, if risk management is no longer a simple "game against natureʺ, if all agents involved are active players then a shift from a...

International and national investors are often exposed to real wealth risks, stemming from volatile asset prices and inflation uncertainty, making it difficult to stabilize consumption patterns. However, investors can enter futures markets to hedge against these risks. The paper develops a...

This paper examines the interplay between the real and financial decisions of the competitive firm `a la Sandmo. Besides output price uncertainty, the firm faces additional sources of risk which are aggregated into an additive background risk. We show that the firm always chooses its optimal...

The value at risk measure attempts to summarize in a single number market value risk of a portfolio of financial assets.The paper focuses on the interaction between the solvency probability of a bank, on one hand, and the diversification potential of its portfolio, on the other hand, when...