This paper proposes Spillover Persistence as a measure for financial fragility. The volatility paradox predicts that fragility builds up when volatility is low, which challenges existing measures. Spillover Persistence tackles this challenge by exploring a novel dimension of systemic risk: loss...

Life insurers sell savings contracts with surrender options, allowing policyholders to prematurely withdraw guaranteed surrender values. Surrender options move toward the money when interest rates rise. Hence, higher interest rates raise surrender rates, as we document for the German life...

This paper proposes Spillover Persistence as a measure for financial fragility. The volatility paradox predicts that fragility builds up when volatility is low, which challenges existing measures. Spillover Persistence tackles this challenge by exploring a novel dimension of systemic risk: loss...

Life insurers massively sell savings contracts with surrender options which allow policyholders to withdraw a guaranteed amount before maturity. These options move toward the money when interest rates rise. Using data on German life insurers, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in...

Life insurers massively sell savings contracts with surrender options which allow policyholders to withdraw a guaranteed amount before maturity. These options move toward the money when interest rates rise. Using data on German life insurers, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in...

Life insurers sell savings contracts with surrender options, allowing policyholders to prematurely withdraw guaranteed surrender values. Surrender options move toward the money when interest rates rise. Hence, higher interest rates raise surrender rates, as we document for the German life...