Essays on Risk and Uncertainty in Economics and Finance

Essays on Risk and Uncertainty in Economics and Finance
Author: Jorge Mario Uribe Gil
Publisher: Ed. Universidad de Cantabria
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2022-11-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 8417888756

This book adds to the resolution of two problems in finance and economics: i) what is macro-financial uncertainty? : How to measure it? How is it different from risk? How important is it for the financial markets? And ii) what sort of asymmetries underlie financial risk and uncertainty propagation across the global financial markets? That is, how risk and uncertainty change according to factors such as market states or market participants. In Chapter 2, which is entitled “Momentum Uncertainties”, the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and the abnormal returns of a momentum trading strategy in the stock market is studies. We show that high levels of uncertainty in the economy impact negatively and significantly the returns of a portfolio of stocks that consist of buying past winners and selling past losers. High uncertainty reduces below zero the abnormal returns of momentum, extinguishes the Sharpe ratio of the momentum strategy, while increases the probability of momentum crashes both by increasing the skewness and the kurtosis of the momentum return distribution. Uncertainty acts as an economic regime that underlies abrupt changes over time of the returns generated by momentum strategies. In Chapter 3, “Measuring Uncertainty in the Stock Market”, a new index for measuring stock market uncertainty on a daily basis is proposed. The index considers the inherent differentiation between uncertainty and the common variations between the series. The second contribution of chapter 3 is to show how this financial uncertainty index can also serve as an indicator of macroeconomic uncertainty. Finally, the dynamic relationship between uncertainty and the series of consumption, interest rates, production and stock market prices, among others, is analized. In chapter 4: “Uncertainty, Systemic Shocks and the Global Banking Sector: Has the Crisis Modified their Relationship?” we explore the stability of systemic risk and uncertainty propagation among financial institutions in the global economy, and show that it has remained stable over the last decade. Additionally, a new simple tool for measuring the resilience of financial institutions to these systemic shocks is provided. We examine the characteristics and stability of systemic risk and uncertainty, in relation to the dynamics of the banking sector stock returns. This sort of evidence is supportive of past claims, made in the field of macroeconomics, which hold that during the global financial crisis the financial system may have faced stronger versions of traditional shocks rather than a new type of shock. In chapter 5, “Currency downside risk, liquidity, and financial stability”, downside risk propagation across global currency markets and the ways in which it is related to liquidity is analyzed. Two primary contributions to the literature follow. First, tail-spillovers between currencies in the global FX market are estimated. This index is easy to build and does not require intraday data, which constitutes an important advantage. Second, we show that turnover is related to risk spillovers in global currency markets. Chapter 6 is entitled “Spillovers from the United States to Latin American and G7 Stock Markets: A VAR-Quantile Analysis”. This chapter contributes to the studies of contagion, market integration and cross-border spillovers during both regular and crisis episodes by carrying out a multivariate quantile analysis. It focuses on Latin American stock markets, which have been characterized by a highly positive dynamic in recent decades, in terms of market capitalization and liquidity ratios, after a far-reaching process of market liberalization and reforms to pension funds across the continent during the 80s and 90s. We document smaller dependences between the LA markets and the US market than those between the US and the developed economies, especially in the highest and lowest quantiles.

Handbook of the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty

Handbook of the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty
Author: Mark Machina
Publisher: Newnes
Total Pages: 897
Release: 2013-11-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0444536868

The need to understand the theories and applications of economic and finance risk has been clear to everyone since the financial crisis, and this collection of original essays proffers broad, high-level explanations of risk and uncertainty. The economics of risk and uncertainty is unlike most branches of economics in spanning from the individual decision-maker to the market (and indeed, social decisions), and ranging from purely theoretical analysis through individual experimentation, empirical analysis, and applied and policy decisions. It also has close and sometimes conflicting relationships with theoretical and applied statistics, and psychology. The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of diverse aspects of this field, ranging from classical and foundational work through current developments. Presents coherent summaries of risk and uncertainty that inform major areas in economics and finance Divides coverage between theoretical, empirical, and experimental findings Makes the economics of risk and uncertainty accessible to scholars in fields outside economics

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit
Author: Frank Hyneman Knight
Publisher:
Total Pages: 406
Release: 1921
Genre: Profit
ISBN:

Pt. 1. Introductory.--pt. 2. Perfect competition.--pt. 3. Imperfect competition through risk and uncertainty.

Essays on Uncertainty in Economics

Essays on Uncertainty in Economics
Author: Alp Simsek
Publisher:
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

(cont.) learn about the health of the trading partners of the trading partners of the trading partners, and so on. At some point, the cost of information gathering becomes too unmanageable for banks, uncertainty spikes, and they have no option but to withdraw from loan commitments and illiquid positions. A flight-to-quality ensues, and the financial crisis spreads. The fourth essay, joint with Daron Acemoglu, analyzes the effect of uncertainty of a special kind, that involves economic agents' private actions and anonymous market transactions, on the functioning and efficiency of competitive markets. Despite a sizeable literature, how competitive markets deal with this type of uncertainty remains unclear. A "folk theorem" originating, among others, in the work of Stiglitz maintains that competitive equilibria are always or "generically" inefficient (unless contracts directly specify consumption levels as in Prescott and Townsend, thus bypassing trading in anonymous markets). This essay critically reevaluates these claims in the context of a general equilibrium economy with moral hazard. Our results delineate a range of benchmark situations in which equilibria have very strong optimality properties. They also suggest that considerable care is necessary in invoking the folk theorem about the inefficiency of competitive equilibria with private information.

Risk and Uncertainty in Economics

Risk and Uncertainty in Economics
Author: David G. Dickinson
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1994
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

What impact do random events have on individuals? How do they adapt to living in an uncertain stochastic environment? This work pays tribute to the contribution of James L. Ford to our understanding of these themes.