Financial network models are a useful tool to model interconnectedness and systemic risks in financial systems. They are essentially descriptive, and based on highly correlated networks. In this paper we embed them in a stochastic framework, aimed at a more parsimonious and more realistic representation. First we introduce Gaussian graphical models in the field of systemic risk modelling, thus ...

In this essay, we present an overview of the methods for comparison and quantification of risk. First, we review general frameworks for comparison of so called lotteries via ordinal preferences. The concept of replicating these preferences by (expected) utility functions is discussed. The attitude of risk-averseness is then explained in terms of the individuals’ utility functions. We then revie...

Risk measures have been studied for several decades in the actuarial literature, where they appeared under the guise of premium calculation principles. Risk measures and properties that risk measures should satisfy have recently received considerable attention in the financial mathematics literature. Mathematically, a risk measure is a mapping from a class of random variables defined on some me...

Risk measurement for derivative portfolios almost invariably calls for nested simulation. In the outer step one draws realizations of all risk factors up to the horizon, and in the inner step one re-prices each instrument in the portfolio at the horizon conditional on the drawn risk factors. Practitioners may perceive the computational burden of such nested schemes to be unacceptable, and adopt...

According to different typologies of activity and priority, risks can assume diverse meanings and it can be assessed in different ways. In general risk is measured in terms of a probability combination of an event (frequency) and its consequence (impact). To estimate the frequency and the impact (severity) historical data or expert opinions (either qualitative or quantitative data) are used. Mo...

Individual Risk Attitudes: New Evidence from a Large, Representative, Experimentally-Validated Survey This paper presents new evidence on the distribution of risk attitudes in the population, using a novel set of survey questions and a representative sample of roughly 22,000 individuals living in Germany. Using a question that asks about willingness to take risks on an 11-point scale, we find e...