This thesis consists of three essays on risk management in crude oil markets. In the first essay, the valuation of an oil sands project is studied using real options approach. Oil sands production consumes substantial amount of natural gas during extracting and upgrading. Natural gas prices are known to be stochastic and highly volatile which introduces a risk factor that needs to be taken into account. The essay studies the impact of this risk factor on the value of an oil sands project and its optimal operation. The essay takes into account the co-movement between crude oil and natural gas markets and, accordingly, proposes two models: one incorporates a long-run link between the two markets while the other has no such link. The valuation problem is solved using the Least Square Monte Carlo (LSMC) method proposed by Longsta ff and Schwartz (2001) for valuing American options. The valuation results show that incorporating a long-run relationship between the two markets is a very crucial decision in the value of the project and in its optimal operation. The essay shows that ignoring this long-run relationship makes the optimal policy sensitive to the dynamics of natural gas prices. On the other hand, incorporating this long-run relationship makes the dynamics of natural gas price process have a very low impact on valuation and the optimal operating policy. In the second essay, the relationship between the slope of the futures term structure, or the forward curve, and volatility in the crude oil market is investigated using a measure of the slope based on principal component analysis (PCA). The essay begins by reviewing the main theories of the relation between spot and futures prices and considering the implication of each theory on the relation between the slope of the forward curve and volatility. The diagonal VECH model of Bollerslev et al. (1988) was used to analyse the relationship between of the forward curve slope and the variances of the spot and futures prices and the covariance between them. The results show that there is a significant quadratic relationship and that exploiting this relation improves the hedging performance using futures contracts. The third essay attempts to model the spot price process of crude oil using the notion of convenience yield in a regime switching framework. Unlike the existing studies, which assume the convenience yield to have either a constant value or to have a stochastic behaviour with mean reversion to one equilibrium level, the model of this essay extends the Brennan and Schwartz (1985) model to allows for regime switching in the convenience yield along with the other parameters. In the essay, a closed form solution for the futures price is derived. The parameters are estimated using an extension to the Kalman filter proposed by Kim (1994). The regime switching one-factor model of this study does a reasonable job and the transitional probabilities play an important role in shaping the futures term structure implied by the model.

The dissertation proposes three approaches for financial risk management. In the first topic, we investigate the stock return and risk of financial holding companies via Markov regime-switching model. The model reduces the disadvantage of traditional linear model, which disregard information of another regime if there exist structural change during the estimation periods. The empirical result shows that all financial holding companies have different stock risk between state 0 and state 1. Moreover, stock risks of all financial holding companies are significant lower after listing. That is, financial holding companies have diversification benefits after listing. In the second topic, we gauge the credit risk of guarantee issue in a bills finance company in Taiwan by a market-based model. Since bills finance companies engage in short-term loans, we renew the contract that can extend short-term loans to mid-and long-term loans. We find that the recovery rate, different industries and business cycle have significant impact on the credit risk of the bills finance company. In the third topic, we relax the assumption of Jarrow, Lando and Turnbull (1997), and propose an elaborate model to gauge the credit risk of Taiwanese bank loans. The empirical result indicates that the credit risk is heavily reliant on the recovery rate. Therefore, collateral value check procedure is very important, which has been found in previous topic. On the other hand, we find that the credit risk management is indifferent between banks participated in financial holding companies and others. That is, banks do not have better credit risk management if take part in financial holding companies. In conclusion, we expect approaches of the dissertation will be helpful for Taiwan¡¦s financial institutions to rise to the challenge of financial risk in the future.

In this study, both uni-regime GARCH and Markov Regime Switching GARCH (SW-GARCH) models are examined to analyze Turkish Stock Market volatility. We investigate various models to find out whether SW-GARCH models are an improvement on the uni-regime GARCH models in terms of modelling and forecasting Turkish Stock Market volatility. As well as using seven statistical loss functions, we apply Superior Predictive Ability (SPA) test of Hansen (2005) and Reality Check test (RC) of White (2000) to compare forecast performance of various models.

Chapter 2 considers technology adoption under both technological and subsidy uncertainties. Uncertainty in subsidies for green technologies is considered as an example. Technological progress is exogenous and modeled as a jump process with a drift. The analytical solution is presented for cases when there is no subsidy uncertainty and when the subsidy changes once. The case when the subsidy follows a time invariant Markov process is analyzed numerically. The results show that improving the innovation process raises the investment thresholds. When technological jumps are small or rare, this improvement reduces the expected time before technology adoption. However, when technological jumps are large or abundant, this improvement may raise this expected time. Chapter 3 studies technology adoption in a duopoly where the unbiased technological change improves production efficiency. Technological progress is exogenous and modeled as a jump process with a drift. There is always a Markov perfect equilibrium in which the firm with more efficient technology never preempts its rival. Also, a class of equilibria may exist that lead to a smaller industry surplus. In these equilibria either of the firms may preempt its rival in a set of technology efficiency values. The first investment does not necessarily happen at the boundary of this set due to the discrete nature of the technology progress. The set shrinks and eventually disappears when the difference between firms’ efficiencies increases. Chapter 4 studies the behavior of two firms after a new investment opportunity arises. Firms either invest immediately or wait until market uncertainty is resolved. Two types of separating equilibrium are possible when sunk costs are private information. In the first type the firm with lower cost invests first. In the second type the firm with higher cost invests first leading to a smaller industry surplus. The results indicate that the second type is possible only for strictly negatively correlated sunk costs. Numerical analysis illustrates that when first mover advantage is large, the firm that delays the investment should be almost certain about its rival’s sunk cost. When market risk increases, the equilibria can exist when the firm is less certain. / text

This thesis consists of three essays on risk management in crude oil markets. In the first essay, the valuation of an oil sands project is studied using real options approach. Oil sands production consumes substantial amount of natural gas during extracting and upgrading. Natural gas prices are known to be stochastic and highly volatile which introduces a risk factor that needs to be taken into account. The essay studies the impact of this risk factor on the value of an oil sands project and its optimal operation. The essay takes into account the co-movement between crude oil and natural gas markets and, accordingly, proposes two models: one incorporates a long-run link between the two markets while the other has no such link. The valuation problem is solved using the Least Square Monte Carlo (LSMC) method proposed by Longsta ff and Schwartz (2001) for valuing American options. The valuation results show that incorporating a long-run relationship between the two markets is a very crucial decision in the value of the project and in its optimal operation. The essay shows that ignoring this long-run relationship makes the optimal policy sensitive to the dynamics of natural gas prices. On the other hand, incorporating this long-run relationship makes the dynamics of natural gas price process have a very low impact on valuation and the optimal operating policy. In the second essay, the relationship between the slope of the futures term structure, or the forward curve, and volatility in the crude oil market is investigated using a measure of the slope based on principal component analysis (PCA). The essay begins by reviewing the main theories of the relation between spot and futures prices and considering the implication of each theory on the relation between the slope of the forward curve and volatility. The diagonal VECH model of Bollerslev et al. (1988) was used to analyse the relationship between of the forward curve slope and the variances of the spot and futures prices and the covariance between them. The results show that there is a significant quadratic relationship and that exploiting this relation improves the hedging performance using futures contracts. The third essay attempts to model the spot price process of crude oil using the notion of convenience yield in a regime switching framework. Unlike the existing studies, which assume the convenience yield to have either a constant value or to have a stochastic behaviour with mean reversion to one equilibrium level, the model of this essay extends the Brennan and Schwartz (1985) model to allows for regime switching in the convenience yield along with the other parameters. In the essay, a closed form solution for the futures price is derived. The parameters are estimated using an extension to the Kalman filter proposed by Kim (1994). The regime switching one-factor model of this study does a reasonable job and the transitional probabilities play an important role in shaping the futures term structure implied by the model.

在國際間的股票市場中，股票報酬常存在有不對稱的相關結構，而其會造成許多極度地尾端風險。Copula函數常被用來描述多變數之間的聯合相關程度。多數的文獻均以二元copula函數為架構，去描述多種不同資產，像是股票、債券、匯率等之間的關係。我們討論多元copula的應用，本文以四元copula為主軸，並輔以狀態轉換 (regime-switching) 之機率過程，建構出四資產的投資組合之相關結構模型。 考慮了狀態轉換之copula的配適性後，我們以此模型來做資產投資策略。在模擬過程中，我們嘗試根據不同的未來目標做出最佳的投資組合權重，並採用動態預期模型 (dynamic anticipative model) 來藉由資訊的不斷更新，重新估計模型的參數來做資產評估。實證結果上，我們發現考慮狀態轉換之copula模型可以捕捉到更多股票報酬波動的情形，因此能減少在股市共跌時造成的重大損失。 / The correlation of returns in international stock markets exist asymmetric structure, which cause extremely tail dependence. The copula functions are commonly used to describe the dependence between random variables. Most literatures use basic pair-copulas to model the dependence of two variables, like stocks, bonds and exchange rates. This article try to use multivariate copulas, mainly 4-copula, and regime-switching method to construct a portfolio dependence, and extend to asset allocation. Given the fitting regime-switching copula, we use the model to decide investment strategy. We try to select the optimal weights of portfolio by different objective function, and we adapt a dynamic anticipative model, which can take all new information for parameters estimation. Empirically, we find that the copula-based model with regime-switching can capture more variation, and decrease the return loss from downside co-movement.

Esta pesquisa investiga o comportamento não-linear do pass-through de taxa de câmbio na economia brasileira, durante o período de câmbio flutuante (2000-2015), a partir de um modelo de equilíbrio geral dinâmico estocástico com mudança de regime Markoviana (MS-DSGE). Para isso, utilizamos a metodologia proposta por Baele et al. (2015) e um modelo Novo-Keynesiano básico, sobre o qual incluímos novos elementos na curva de oferta agregada e uma nova equação para a dinâmica cambial. Encontramos evidências de existência de dois regimes distintos para o repasse cambial e para a variância dos choques sobre a inflação. No regime denominado de “Normal”, o pass-through de longo prazo é estimado em 0.0092 pontos percentuais para inflação, dado um choque cambial de 1%, contra 0.1302 pontos percentuais no regime de “Crise”. A superioridade do modelo MS-DSGE sobre o modelo com parâmetros fixos é constatada de acordo com diversos critérios comparativos. / This research investigates the non-linearity of exchange rate pass-through on the Brazilian economy during the floating exchange rate period (2000-2015) in a Markov-switching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework (MS-DSGE). We apply methods proposed by Baele et al. (2015) in a basic New Keynesian model, with the addition of new elements to the aggregate supply curve and a new equation for the exchange rate dynamics. We find evidence of two distinct regimes for the exchange rate pass-through and for the volatility of shocks to inflation. During the regime named “Normal”, the long run pass-through is estimated as 0.0092 percent points to inflation, given a 1% exchange rate shock, in contrast to 0.1302 percent points during the “Crisis” regime. The MS-DSGE model appears superior to the fixed parameters model according to various comparison criteria.

Na Europa alguns países passaram por um processo de integração econômica, trocando suas moedas locais por uma moeda única a fim de aumentar o volume de comércio e investimento direto entre os países europeus. Em fevereiro de 1992 foi assinado o Tratado da União Européia (UE), conhecido como Tratado de Maastricht, no qual foi definida uma nova unidade monetária, conhecida como Euro, que entraria em vigor a partir de 1999 nos países integrantes da UE. O processo de ajuste experimentado por algumas economias européias para a inserção no bloco econômico europeu e para adoção do Euro pode ter afetado os fundamentos e, por conseguinte, a volatilidade do mercado acionário. O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar o impacto da introdução da moeda única no mercado acionário europeu. Para isso, será estimando um modelo GARCH com mudança de regime (SWGARCH). Mais especificamente a idéia é responder as seguintes perguntas: Será que o Euro mudou o regime da volatilidade do mercado acionário europeu? Esta possível mudança foi temporária ou permanente? Para esta análise foi utilizado um grupo de países estáveis, composto por França e Alemanha e um grupo de países instáveis, composto por Itália e Portugal. Para analisar o efeito isolado do Euro, utilizou-se a Inglaterra e a Suécia, pois são países membros da UE que não adotaram a moeda única. Para tirar o efeito dos eventos mundiais, foi incluído o mercado acionário americano como proxy do mercado mundial. Os resultados encontrados mostram que o Euro não afetou a volatilidade do mercado mundial, mas impactou temporariamente a volatilidade dos mercados locais. Para os países que não adotaram o Euro não temos como evidenciar claramente se houve algum impacto na volatilidade. / Some European countries had faced an increasing integration concerning their macroeconomic fundamentals since the mid nineties. A group of countries signed the European Union Maastricht Treaty on February 1992. This Treaty defined the creation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and a new currency (Euro) that would be set in its members on January 1st, 1999. The European countries of UME had to adopt a lot of economics reforms in order to convert their local currencies into Euro. These changes in the macroeconomics fundamentals should have affected European stock markets. The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of Euro on European sock markets. Has the Euro changed European stock markets volatility? Was this possible change temporary or permanent? In others words, the main goal of this paper is try to answer these questions. It will be estimated an univariate Switching GARCH model for stable and unstable European economies. The American stock market was used as a proxy to the world stock market. The results show that the Euro has not affected the world stock market, but it had a temporary impact on volatility of the European stock markets in the countries that joined EMU.

Esta pesquisa investiga o comportamento não-linear do pass-through de taxa de câmbio na economia brasileira, durante o período de câmbio flutuante (2000-2015), a partir de um modelo de equilíbrio geral dinâmico estocástico com mudança de regime Markoviana (MS-DSGE). Para isso, utilizamos a metodologia proposta por Baele et al. (2015) e um modelo Novo-Keynesiano básico, sobre o qual incluímos novos elementos na curva de oferta agregada e uma nova equação para a dinâmica cambial. Encontramos evidências de existência de dois regimes distintos para o repasse cambial e para a variância dos choques sobre a inflação. No regime denominado de “Normal”, o pass-through de longo prazo é estimado em 0.0092 pontos percentuais para inflação, dado um choque cambial de 1%, contra 0.1302 pontos percentuais no regime de “Crise”. A superioridade do modelo MS-DSGE sobre o modelo com parâmetros fixos é constatada de acordo com diversos critérios comparativos. / This research investigates the non-linearity of exchange rate pass-through on the Brazilian economy during the floating exchange rate period (2000-2015) in a Markov-switching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework (MS-DSGE). We apply methods proposed by Baele et al. (2015) in a basic New Keynesian model, with the addition of new elements to the aggregate supply curve and a new equation for the exchange rate dynamics. We find evidence of two distinct regimes for the exchange rate pass-through and for the volatility of shocks to inflation. During the regime named “Normal”, the long run pass-through is estimated as 0.0092 percent points to inflation, given a 1% exchange rate shock, in contrast to 0.1302 percent points during the “Crisis” regime. The MS-DSGE model appears superior to the fixed parameters model according to various comparison criteria.

Na Europa alguns países passaram por um processo de integração econômica, trocando suas moedas locais por uma moeda única a fim de aumentar o volume de comércio e investimento direto entre os países europeus. Em fevereiro de 1992 foi assinado o Tratado da União Européia (UE), conhecido como Tratado de Maastricht, no qual foi definida uma nova unidade monetária, conhecida como Euro, que entraria em vigor a partir de 1999 nos países integrantes da UE. O processo de ajuste experimentado por algumas economias européias para a inserção no bloco econômico europeu e para adoção do Euro pode ter afetado os fundamentos e, por conseguinte, a volatilidade do mercado acionário. O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar o impacto da introdução da moeda única no mercado acionário europeu. Para isso, será estimando um modelo GARCH com mudança de regime (SWGARCH). Mais especificamente a idéia é responder as seguintes perguntas: Será que o Euro mudou o regime da volatilidade do mercado acionário europeu? Esta possível mudança foi temporária ou permanente? Para esta análise foi utilizado um grupo de países estáveis, composto por França e Alemanha e um grupo de países instáveis, composto por Itália e Portugal. Para analisar o efeito isolado do Euro, utilizou-se a Inglaterra e a Suécia, pois são países membros da UE que não adotaram a moeda única. Para tirar o efeito dos eventos mundiais, foi incluído o mercado acionário americano como proxy do mercado mundial. Os resultados encontrados mostram que o Euro não afetou a volatilidade do mercado mundial, mas impactou temporariamente a volatilidade dos mercados locais. Para os países que não adotaram o Euro não temos como evidenciar claramente se houve algum impacto na volatilidade. / Some European countries had faced an increasing integration concerning their macroeconomic fundamentals since the mid nineties. A group of countries signed the European Union Maastricht Treaty on February 1992. This Treaty defined the creation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and a new currency (Euro) that would be set in its members on January 1st, 1999. The European countries of UME had to adopt a lot of economics reforms in order to convert their local currencies into Euro. These changes in the macroeconomics fundamentals should have affected European stock markets. The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of Euro on European sock markets. Has the Euro changed European stock markets volatility? Was this possible change temporary or permanent? In others words, the main goal of this paper is try to answer these questions. It will be estimated an univariate Switching GARCH model for stable and unstable European economies. The American stock market was used as a proxy to the world stock market. The results show that the Euro has not affected the world stock market, but it had a temporary impact on volatility of the European stock markets in the countries that joined EMU.