The Basel Accord assumes an inverse relationship between the probability of default and the asset correlation parameter, with the latter being responsible for modeling the degree of cyclicality of default rates. Previous empirical studies that embedded the formula of the Basel Accord into a...

The yen is an important barometer for the Japanese economy. Depreciations are typically associated with favorable economic developments such as increased corporate profits, rising equity prices, and upward pressure on domestic consumer prices. On the other hand, large and sharp appreciations run...

This paper examines an episode when policy response to a financial crisis effectively incentivized financial institutions to reallocate their portfolios toward safe assets. Following a shift to a regime of enhanced regulation and scaled-down public assistance during the Savings and Loans (S&L)...

The 2008-2009 financial crises revealed that the Basel Accord of 2004 was inadequate to ensure a stable financial sector. In this paper we analyze whether the Basel Accord's assumption of a single risk factor contributed to the instability. The asset correlation parameter describes the degree of...

During banking crises, regulators must decide between bailouts or liquidations,neither of which are publicly popular. A comprehensive assessment of regulators,however, requires examining all their decisions against regulators’ objectives of preserving financial stability while discouraging...

This paper analyzes the evolution of the degree of global cyclical interdependence over the period 1960-2005. We categorize the 106 countries in our sample into three groups: industrial countries, emerging markets, and other developing economies. Using a dynamic factor model, we then decompose...

This paper analyzes long-run co-movements between international real estate stock markets and between regions based on bivariate and multivariate tests for cointegration. While the topic has been analyzed in previous studies such as Gallo and Zhang (2009) and Yunus (2009) among others, this...

Exchange rates typically exhibit time-varying patterns in both means andvariances. The histograms of such series indicate heavy tails. In thispaper we construct models which enable a decision-maker to analyze theimplications of such time series patterns for currency risk management.Our approach...

We construct models which enable a decision-maker to analyze the implications oftypical timeseries patterns of daily exchange rates for currency risk management. Ourapproach is Bayesianwhere extensive use is made of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The effects ofseveral modelcharacteristics...

This paper introduces a new measure of dependence or jointness among explanatory variables. Jointness is based on the joint posterior distribution of variables over the model space, thereby taking model uncertainty into account. By looking beyond marginal measures of variable importance,...