Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model

© University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. A country’s level of exchange risk is closely linked to its financial stability, on a macro-economic scale. South African exchange rates, in particular, have a significant impact on imports, inflation, consumer prices and monetary policies. Consequently...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kemda, L., Huang, Karl, Chinhamu, K.
Format: Journal Article
Published: University of Pretoria 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/67035
_version_ 1848761457823449088
author Kemda, L.
Huang, Karl
Chinhamu, K.
author_facet Kemda, L.
Huang, Karl
Chinhamu, K.
author_sort Kemda, L.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. A country’s level of exchange risk is closely linked to its financial stability, on a macro-economic scale. South African exchange rates, in particular, have a significant impact on imports, inflation, consumer prices and monetary policies. Consequently, it is imperative for economists and investors to assess accurately the associated exchange risks. Exchange rates, like most financial time series, are leptokurtic and contradict the classical Gaussian assumption. We therefore introduce subclasses of the generalised hyperbolic distribution as alternative models and contrast these with the normal distribution. We conclude that the variance-gamma model is the most robust for describing the log-returns of daily USD/ZAR exchange rates and their related Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimates. The model selection methodologies utilised in our analyses include the robust Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Akaike information criterion. Backtesting on the adequacy of VaR estimates is also performed using the Kupiec likelihood ratio test.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T10:31:59Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-67035
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T10:31:59Z
publishDate 2015
publisher University of Pretoria
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-670352021-08-23T06:39:39Z Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model Kemda, L. Huang, Karl Chinhamu, K. © University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. A country’s level of exchange risk is closely linked to its financial stability, on a macro-economic scale. South African exchange rates, in particular, have a significant impact on imports, inflation, consumer prices and monetary policies. Consequently, it is imperative for economists and investors to assess accurately the associated exchange risks. Exchange rates, like most financial time series, are leptokurtic and contradict the classical Gaussian assumption. We therefore introduce subclasses of the generalised hyperbolic distribution as alternative models and contrast these with the normal distribution. We conclude that the variance-gamma model is the most robust for describing the log-returns of daily USD/ZAR exchange rates and their related Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimates. The model selection methodologies utilised in our analyses include the robust Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Akaike information criterion. Backtesting on the adequacy of VaR estimates is also performed using the Kupiec likelihood ratio test. 2015 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/67035 10.17159/2222-3436/2015/v18n4a8 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ University of Pretoria fulltext
spellingShingle Kemda, L.
Huang, Karl
Chinhamu, K.
Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model
title Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model
title_full Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model
title_fullStr Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model
title_full_unstemmed Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model
title_short Value-at-risk for the USD/ZAR exchange rate: The variance-gamma model
title_sort value-at-risk for the usd/zar exchange rate: the variance-gamma model
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/67035