This paper reviews empirical and theoretical work on the links between banks and their governments (the bank-sovereign nexus). How significant is this nexus? What do we know about it? To what extent is it a source of concern? What is the role of policy intervention? The paper concludes with a review of recent policy proposals.

In an environment of sizable and volatile capital flows and integrated international capital markets, large and unhedged net external sovereign liabilities expose countries to swings in international asset prices and to potential speculative currency attacks. The paper argues that an essential step in reducing emerging market vulnerability to such external shocks is to reform the institutional arrangements governing asset and liability management policies, so as to promote a transparent, publicly accountable, and professional incentive structure.

Banks are a vital part of the global economy, and the essence of banking is asset-liability management (ALM). This book is a comprehensive treatment of an important financial market discipline. A reference text for all those involved in banking and the debt capital markets, it describes the techniques, products and art of ALM. Subjects covered include bank capital, money market trading, risk management, regulatory capital and yield curve analysis. Highlights of the book include detailed coverage of: Liquidity, gap and funding risk management Hedging using interest-rate derivatives and credit derivatives Impact of Basel II Securitisation and balance sheet management Structured finance products including asset-backed commercial paper, mortgage-backed securities, collateralised debt obligations and structured investment vehicles, and their role in ALM Treasury operations and group transfer pricing. Concepts and techniques are illustrated with case studies and worked examples. Written in accessible style, this book is essential reading for market practitioners, bank regulators, and graduate students in banking and finance. Companion website features online access to software on applications described in the book, including a yield curve model, cubic spline spreadsheet calculator and CDO waterfall model.

Country practices towards managing financial risks on a sovereign balance sheet continue to evolve. Each crisis period, and its legacy on sovereign balance sheets, reaffirms the need for strengthening financial risk management. This paper discusses some salient features embedded in in the current generation of sovereign asset and liability management (SALM) approaches, including objectives, definitions of relevant assets and liabilities, and methodologies used in obtaining optimal SALM outcomes. These elements are used in developing an analytical SALM framework which could become an operational instrument in formulating asset management and debtor liability management strategies at the sovereign level. From a portfolio perspective, the SALM approach could help detect direct and derived sovereign risk exposures. It allows analyzing the financial characteristics of the balance sheet, identifying sources of costs and risks, and quantifying the correlations among these sources of risk. The paper also outlines institutional requirements in implementing an SALM framework and seeks to lay the ground for further policy and analytical work on this topic.

This book provides a comprehensive discussion of the issues related to risk, volatility, value and risk management. It includes a selection of the best papers presented at the Fourth International Finance Conference 2007, qualified by Professor James Heckman, the 2000 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, as a high level one. The first half of the book examines ways to manage risk and compute value-at-risk for exchange risk associated to debt portfolios and portfolios of equity. It also covers the Basel II framework implementation and securitisation. The effects of volatility and risk on the valuation of financial assets are further studied in detail. The second half of the book is dedicated to the banking industry, banking competition on the credit market, banking risk and distress, market valuation, managerial risk taking, and value in the ICT activity. With its inclusion of new concepts and recent literature, academics and risk managers will want to read this book. Sample Chapter(s). Introduction (40 KB). Chapter 1: Managing Derivatives in the Presence of a Smile Effect and Incomplete Information (97 KB). Contents: Managing Derivatives in the Presence of a Smile Effect and Incomplete Information (M Bellalah); A Value-at-Risk Approach to Assess Exchange Risk Associated to a Public Debt Portfolio: The Case of a Small Developing Economy (W Ajili); A Method to Find Historical VaR for Portfolio that Follows S&P CNX Nifty Index by Estimating the Index Value (K V N M Ramesh); Some Considerations on the Relationship between Corruption and Economic Growth (V Dragota et al.); Financial Risk Management by Derivatives Caused from Weather Conditions: Its Applicability for Trkiye (T uzkan); The Basel II Framework Implementation and Securitization (M-F Lamy); Stochastic Time Change, Volatility, and Normality of Returns: A High-Frequency Data Analysis with a Sample of LSE Stocks (O Borsali & A Zenaidi); The Behavior of the Implied Volatility Surface: Evidence from Crude Oil Futures Options (A Bouden); Procyclical Behavior of Loan Loss Provisions and Banking Strategies: An Application to the European Banks (D D Dinamona); Market Power and Banking Competition on the Credit Market (I Lapteacru); Early Warning Detection of Banking Distress OCo Is Failure Possible for European Banks? (A Naouar); Portfolio Diversification and Market Share Analysis for Romanian Insurance Companies (M Dragota et al.); On the Closed-End Funds Discounts/Premiums in the Context of the Investor Sentiment Theory (A P C do Monte & M J da Rocha Armada); Why has Idiosyncratic Volatility Increased in Europe? (J-E Palard); Debt Valuation, Enterprise Assessment and Applications (D Vanoverberghe); Does The Tunisian Stock Market Overreact? (F Hammami & E Abaoub); Investor-Venture Capitalist Relationship: Asymmetric Information, Uncertainty, and Monitoring (M Cherif & S Sraieb); Threshold Mean Reversion in Stock Prices (F Jawadi); Households'' Expectations of Unemployment: New Evidence from French Microdata (S Ghabri); Corporate Governance and Managerial Risk Taking: Empirical Study in the Tunisian Context (A B Aroui & F W B M Douagi); Nonlinearity and Genetic Algorithms in the Decision-Making Process (N Hachicha & A Bouri); ICT and Performance of the Companies: The Case of the Tunisian Companies (J Ziadi); Option Market Microstructure (J-M Sahut); Does the Standardization of Business Processes Improve Management? The Case of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (T Chtioui); Does Macroeconomic Transparency Help Governments be Solvent? Evidence from Recent Data (R Mallat & D K Nguyen). Readership: Academics and risk managers."

This volume, edited by David Folkerts-Landau and Marcel Cassard, consists of papers presented at a conference held in Hong Kong SAR that was hosted by the IMF and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. It focuses on a wide range of issues confronting policymakers in managing their sovereign assets and liabilities in a world of mobile capital and integrated capital markets. Topics include public debt management strategy, central bank reserves management, technical and quantitive aspects of risk management, and credit costs and borrowing capacity in optimizing debt management. The papers draw on experiences of policymakers and private sector participants actively involved in formulating and implementing debt and reserves policy.