Risk Management Failures

8 important questions on Risk Management Failures

Why does a large loss not necessarily be a failure in risk management?

Because a large loss can happen even if risk management is flawless. Some events in financial press were not risk management failures. Based on the knowledge and judgement and that given time, the investment had a positive NPV. We must understand that the strategy and risk appetite reflect which (large) risks to take.

What is the role of risk management?

To assess the risks faced by the firm, to communicate these to those that make risk-taking decisions and finally manage and monitor those risks to make sure the firm bears the risks its management and board wants it to bear. Risk management does not prevent losses (perse). Even with good risk management, large losses can occur when those making the risk-taking decisions conclude that taking large well-understood risks creates value for their organisation.

What is easily forgotten with large losses?

That large losses carry deadweight costs. These costs are at the foundation of financial theories of why risk management creates shareholder wealth. Firm can get financially constrained (not able to borrow), lose valuable employees, lose customers, increased scrutiny by regulators. These costs should be taken into account when analyzing large losses.
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What are then risk management failures?

- Mismeasurement of known risks (wrong correlation or distribution)
- Failure to take into account risks (ignored or unknown)
- Failure in communicating the risks to management (UBS)
- Failure in monitoring risks (change/move is too fast)
- Failure in managing risks (no hedge possible)
- Failure to use appropriate risk metrics (VaR does not see the tail)

How to mismeasure (known) risks?

- Wrong distribution (volatility)
- Correlation (benefit of diversification falls when correlations increase)  
- Correlations increase in crisis (no historical data included?)
- Different distribution (not binomial)
- Risks that not have been manifested yet (science to art), prone to subjectivity. As risk management moves away from established quantitative models, it becomes easily embroiled in intra-firm politics.

Lesson: outcome should more rely on risk appetite and culture than risk management models.

How to mismeasure (ignored) risks?

- Ignore a risk even though that risk is known (LTCM: counterpary risk on FX swaps on Ruble?). To see whether this is a failure, we need to look at the information that was available by then.
- Somebody knows about a risk, but it wasn't captured in the models. Could also be mistakes in information collection. Danger for moral hazard on traders. Business risks are known but not always considered relevant (regulatory).
- Realisation of a truly unknown risk (investigating also costs money)
- Relying on past data (no hurt in previous crisis)

How about unknown risks?

Most unknown risks don't create risk management problems. Some just have a very low probability (asteroid). Sometimes distribution is enough. Unknown risks that represent risk management failures are risks, had the firm's managers known about them, their actions would have been different. Plus the information was available!!

Lesson: some capital serves for unknown risks

How about communication failures?

Timely information is important. If a firm had perfect risk management systems but the board cannot understand them, they may do more harm then good by inspiring false confidence. Too late or distorted by intermediaries.

Risk monitoring and management reduces to the basis of getting the:
- right information
- at the right time
- to the right people
- so that these people can make the most informed judgments possible

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

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