Christophe Pérignon

The Level and Quality of Value-at-Risk Disclosure by Commercial Banks

In this paper we study both the level of Value-at-Risk (VaR) disclosure and the accuracy of the disclosed VaR figures for a sample of US and international commercial banks. To measure the level of VaR disclosures, we develop a VaR Disclosure Index that captures many different facets of market risk disclosure. Using panel data over the period 1996–2005, we find an overall upward trend in the quantity of information released to the public. We also find that Historical Simulation is by far the most popular VaR method. We assess the accuracy of VaR figures by studying the number of VaR exceedances and whether actual daily VaRs contain information about the volatility of subsequent trading revenues. Unlike the level of VaR disclosure, the quality of VaR disclosure shows no sign of improvement over time. We find that VaR computed using Historical Simulation contains very little information about future volatility.

Commonality in liquidity: a global perspective

We conduct a comprehensive study of commonality in liquidity using intraday spread and depth data from 47 stock exchanges. We find that firm-level changes in liquidity are significantly influenced by exchange-level changes across most of the worlds stock exchanges. Emerging Asian exchanges have exceptionally strong commonality, while those of Latin America exhibit little if any commonality. After documenting the pervasive role of commonality within individual exchanges, we examine commonality across exchanges. We find evidence of a distinct, global component in bid-ask spreads and depths. Local (exchange-level) sources of commonality represent roughly 39% of the firms total commonality in liquidity, while global sources contribute an additional 19%. We also investigate potential sources of exchange-level and global commonality. We show that commonality is driven by both domestic and U.S. macroeconomic announcements.

Demand for football and intramatch winning probability: an essay on the glorious uncertainty of sports

The aims of this study are (i) to identify the main determinants of the demand for French Premiere Division football matches using all matches played during the 1997/1998 season, (ii) to estimate a team-specific probability of success, and (iii) to propose an updating process for the intramatch winning probability. The methodology is tested empirically over an out-of-sample data set using matches of the 1998/1999 season. The results show that football appears to be an inferior product affected by both socio-economic and football variables, and that the main football variables have only a tenuous explanatory power concerning the final outcome of a given match.

A Theoretical and Empirical Comparison of Systemic Risk Measures

We derive several popular systemic risk measures in a common framework and show that they can be expressed as transformations of market risk measures (e.g., beta). We also derive conditions under which the different measures lead to similar rankings of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). In an empirical analysis of US financial institutions, we show that (1) different systemic risk measures identify different SIFIs and that (2) firm rankings based on systemic risk estimates mirror rankings obtained by sorting firms on market risk or liabilities. One-factor linear models explain most of the variability of the systemic risk estimates, which indicates that systemic risk measures fall short in capturing the multiple facets of systemic risk.

How common are common return factors across the NYSE and Nasdaq

We entertain the possibility of pervasive factors that are not common across two (or more) groups of securities. We propose and implement a general procedure to estimate the space spanned by common and group-specific pervasive factors. In our empirical analysis, we study the factor structure of excess returns on stocks traded on the NYSE and Nasdaq using our methodology. We find that there are only two common pervasive factors that govern the returns for both NYSE and Nasdaq. At the same time, the NYSE and Nasdaq each have one more group-specific factor that is not the same across the two exchanges. Our results point to the absence of complete similarity between the factors driving the returns on these exchanges.

Sources of Time Variation in the Covariance Matrix of Interest Rates

The main objective of this paper is to study the sources of time variation in the covariance matrix of interest rates. We depart from the traditional standard deviation–correlation decomposition of covariances and investigate whether time variation in the covariance matrix of bond yield changes is caused by time-varying eigenvalues and/or eigenvectors. On the basis of a formal testing procedure, we find that common factors display a clear time-varying volatility over the past three decades. Most notably, we observe that the switches in monetary policy that take place with the appointment of a new Federal Reserve chairman play an important role in characterizing the time variation in the loadings on the common factors that drive interest rates.

The Risk Map: A New Tool for Validating Risk Models

This paper presents a new method to validate risk models: the Risk Map. This method jointly accounts for the number and the magnitude of extreme losses and graphically summarizes all information about the performance of a risk model. It relies on the concept of a super exception, which is dex85ned as a situation in which the loss exceeds both the standard Value-at-Risk (VaR) and a VaR dex85ned at an extremely low coverage probability. We then formally test whether the sequences of exceptions and super exceptions are rejected by standard model validation tests. We show that the Risk Map can be used to validate market, credit, operational, or systemic risk estimates (VaR, stressed VaR, expected shortfall, and CoVaR) or to assess the performance of the margin system of a clearing house. JEL classix85cation: G21, G28, G32 Keywords: Financial Risk Management, Tail Risk, Basel III Companion Website: www.RunMyCode.org/CompanionSite/site2 University of Orléans, Laboratoire dx92Economie dx92Orléans, France. Deloitte Société Générale Chair in Energy and Finance, HEC Paris, France. We are extremely grateful to an anonymous referee, John Cotter, Jorge Cruz Lopez, Laurent Frésard, Andras Fulop, Thomas Gilbert, Bertrand Maillet, Olivier Scaillet, and Stefan Straetmans, seminar participants at ESSEC, Free University of Berlin, HEC Paris, Maastricht University, Skema Business School, University College Dublin, University of Geneva, University of Glasgow, University of Lille 2, as well as to participants at the 2010 EconomiX Workshop in Financial Econometrics, 2011 Econometric Society European Meeting, 2011 French Finance Association Spring Meeting, 2011 SMU-ESSEC Symposium on Empirical Finance and Financial Econometrics, and 5th Annual Methods in International Finance Network Workshop for their comments. Pérignon gratefully acknowledges the x85nancial support of the HEC Research Foundation. Emails: gilbert.colletaz@univ-orleans.fr, christophe.hurlin@univ-orleans.fr, perignon@hec.fr. Contact Author: Christophe Pérignon, Finance Department, HEC Paris, 1 Rue de la Libération, 78351 Jouy-en-Josas, France. Phone: +33 139 67 94 11. ha ls hs -0 07 46 27 3, v er si on 1 28 O ct 2 01 2

RunMyCode.org: A novel dissemination and collaboration platform for executing published computational results

We believe computational science as practiced today suffers from a growing credibility gap - it is impossible to replicate most of the computational results presented at conferences or published in papers today. We argue that this crisis can be addressed by the open availability of the code and data that generated the results, in other words practicing reproducible computational science. In this paper we present a new computational infrastructure called RunMyCode.org that is designed to support published articles by providing a dissemination platform for the code and data that generated the their results. Published articles are given a companion webpage on the RunMyCode.org website from which a visitor can both download the associated code and data, and execute the code in the cloud directly through the RunMyCode.org website. This permits results to be verified through the companion webpage or on a users local system. RunMyCode.org also permits a user to upload their own data to the companion webpage to check the code by running it on novel datasets. Through the creation of “coder pages” for each contributor to RunMyCode.org, we seek to facilitate social network-like interaction. Descriptive information appears on each coder page, including demographic data and other companion pages to which they made contributions. In this paper we motivate the rationale and functionality of RunMyCode.org and outline a vision of its future.

Impact of Overwhelming Joy on Consumer Demand: The Case of a Soccer World-Cup Victory

In this article, the authors identify the period following a Soccer World Cup victory as a period of overwhelming joy for the winning country, and they test the impact of a World Cup victory on the demand for soccer in this country. After controlling for the main determinants of attendance, the authors find that consumer demand has positively, significantly, and durably shifted in France following the 1998 World Cup. They also show that the rise in demand is stronger in the nine cities that hosted the World Cup and that the World Cup effect persists for percentage attendance after they control for season ticket holders. Finally, the authors find supportive evidence to their claim that exceptional performance improves sport popularity when analyzing soccer attendance in several control countries, attendance for a potential substitute for soccer in France, and other episodes of overwhelming joy.

Derivatives Clearing, Default Risk, and Insurance

Using daily data on margins and variation margins for all clearing members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, we analyze the clearing house exposure to the risk of default by clearing members. We find that the major source of default risk for a clearing member is proprietary trading rather than trading by customers. Additionally, we show that extreme losses suffered by important clearing firms tend to cluster, which raises systemic risk concerns. Finally, we discuss how private insurance could be used to cover the loss from defaults by clearing members.