FIN-03-037

Cyclicality in Catastrophic and Operational Risk Measurements

November 2003

Linda Allen

ABSTRACT
Using equity returns for financial institutions we estimate both catastrophic and operational risk measures over the period 1973-2001. We find evidence of cyclical components in both the catastrophic and operational risk measures obtained from the Generalized Pareto Distribution and the Skewed Generalized Error Distribution. Our new, comprehensive approach to measuring operational risk shows that approximately two thirds of financial institutions’ returns represents compensation for operational risk.

Linda Allen
Institution: Professor of Finance, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University
Email: lallen@stern.nyu.edu
Home Page: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~lallen

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