In recent years, copulas have become very popular in financial research and actuarial science as they are more flexible in modelling the co-movements and relationships of risk factors as compared to the conventional linear correlation coefficient by Pearson. However, a precise estimation of the...

An alleged weakness of heuristic optimisation methods is the stochastic character of their solutions. That is, instead of finding a truly optimal solution, they only provide a stochastic approximation of this optimum. In this paper we look into a particular application, portfolio optimisation....

Basel II imposes regulatory capital on banks related to the default risk of their credit portfolio. Banks using an internal rating approach compute the regulatory capital from pooled probabilities of default. These pooled probabilities can be calculated by clustering credit borrowers into...

For estimating the parameters of models for financial market data, the use of robust techniques is of particular interest. Conditional forecasts, based on the capital asset pricing model, and a factor model are considered. It is proposed to consider least median of squares estimators as one...

According to the latest Basel framework of Banking Supervision, financial institutions should internally assign their borrowers into a number of homogeneous groups. Each group is assigned a probability of default which distinguishes it from other groups. This study aims at determining the...