Can a Coherent Risk Measure be Too Subadditive?

by Jan Dhaene of the Catholic University of Leuven & University of Amsterdam,
Roger J.A. Laeven of the University of Amsterdam & Mercer Oliver Wyman,
Steven Vanduffel of the Catholic University of Leuven,
Grzegorz Darkiewicz of the Catholic University of Leuven, and
Marc J. Goovaerts of the Catholic University of Leuven & University of Amsterdam

June 2008

Abstract: We consider the problem of determining appropriate solvency capital requirements for an insurance company or a financial institution. We demonstrate that the subadditivity condition that is often imposed on solvency capital principles can lead to the undesirable situation where the shortfall risk increases by a merger. We propose to complement the subadditivity condition by a regulator's condition. We find that for an explicitly specified confidence level, the Value-at-Risk satisfies the regulator's condition and is the "most efficient" capital requirement in the sense that it minimizes some reasonable cost function. Within the class of concave distortion risk measures, of which the elements, in contrast to the Value-at-Risk, exhibit the subadditivity property, we find that, again for an explicitly specified confidence level, the Tail-Value-at-Risk is the optimal capital requirement satisfying the regulator's condition.

JEL Classification: G21, G22, G31.

Keywords: Risk measures, Solvency capital requirements, (Tail-) Value-at-Risk, Diversification, Subadditivity.

Published in: Journal of Risk & Insurance, Vol. 75, No. 2, (June 2008), pp. 365-386.

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