Value at risk (VaR) has become a standard measure of portfolio risk over the last decade. It even became one of the corner stones in the Basel II accord about banks' equity requirements. Nevertheless, the practical application of the VaR concept suffers from two problems: how to estimate VaR and...

This paper investigates the time-varying corporate bond index returns in a multi-factor smooth transition regression model. We find that expected index returns vary between weak and strong economic regimes, where the transition from one regime to the other is governed by the 3-quartered growth...

Bank regulation is supposed to reduce the probability of bank failure and, if a failure occurs, to contain the damage so that system-wide problems are unlikely. The current regulatory framework, known as Basel II, is based, among other things, on risk-adjusted capital requirements. This...