Measuring tail risks

Microeconomic Origins of Macroeconomic Tail Risks

We document that even though the normal distribution is a good approximation to the nature of aggregate fluctuations, it severely underpredicts the frequency of large economic downturns. We then provide a model that can explain these facts simultaneously. Our model shows that the propagation of microeconomic shocks through input-output linkages can fundamentally reshape the distribution of aggr...

Asset Pricing with Endogenously Uninsurable Tail Risks

This paper studies asset pricing in a setting where idiosyncratic risks in labor productivities are uninsurable due to limited commitment. Firms provide insurance to workers using long-term contracts but neither side can commit to these relationships. Under the optimal contract, sufficiently adverse shocks to worker productivity are uninsured. In general equilibrium, exposure to down-side tail ...

Four Essays on Measuring Financial Risks

UNDERSTANDING AND MEASURING RISKS IN AGENCY CMOs

The Agency CMO market, an often overlooked corner of mortgage finance, has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade. This paper explains the rationale behind the construction of Agency CMOs, quantifies risks embedded in Agency CMOs using a traditional and a novel approach, and offers valuable lessons learned when interpreting these risk measures. Among these lessons is that to fully u...

Sectoral networks and macroeconomic tail risks in an emerging economy

This paper aims to explain the macroeconomic volatility due to microeconomic shocks to one or several sectors, recognizing the non-symmetrical relation in the interaction among the Ecuadorian economic sectors. To grasp the economic structure of this emerging economy, a statistical analysis of network data is applied to the respective input-output matrix of Ecuador from 1975 until 2012. We find ...