A least-squares Monte Carlo approach to the estimation of enterprise risk

by Hongjun Ha1 and Daniel Bauer2
1Department of Mathematics, Saint Joseph's University, 5600 City Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19131, USA
(email: hha@sju.edu)
2Department of Risk and Insurance, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 975 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706, USA
(email: daniel.bauer@wisc.edu)

Abstract

The estimation of enterprise risk for financial institutions entails a reevaluation of the company's economic balance sheet at a future time for a (large) number of stochastic scenarios. The current paper discusses tackling this nested valuation problem based on least-squares Monte Carlo techniques familiar from American option pricing. We formalise the algorithm in an operator setting, and discuss the choice of the regressors (''basis functions''). In particular, we show that the left singular functions of the corresponding conditional expectation operator present robust basis functions. Our numerical examples demonstrate that the algorithm can produce accurate results at relatively low computational costs.


Key words:

Risk management, Least-squares Monte Carlo, Basis functions
JEL Classification:  C63, G22, G32
Mathematics Subject Classification (2020): 60J22, 91G60, 33C50