Article | Harvard Business Review | November–December 1994

A Framework for Risk Management

by K. Froot, David S. Scharfstein and J. Stein

Keywords: Catastrophe Risk; corporate finance; cost of capital; Banking and Insurance; asset pricing; Hedging; banking; Insurance; Decision choice and uncertainty; Financial Markets; Insurance; Policy; Risk Management; Natural Disasters; Insurance Industry;

Format: Print

11 pages

Find at Harvard

Citation:

Froot, K., David S. Scharfstein, and J. Stein. "A Framework for Risk Management." Harvard Business Review 72, no. 6 (November–December 1994): 59–71. (Revised from "Developing a Risk Management Strategy," Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 95-021. Reprinted in Bank of America Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 7, no. 3 (fall 1994): 22-32; Marsh & McLennan Companies' Viewpoint 24 (spring 1995): 21-37; and in Corporate Risk: Strategies and Management, edited by Greg Brown and Don Chew, London: Risk Books, December 1999.)

Philips Electronics is a leader in integrated reporting. In 2010 it produced its third generation report. Since its first report in 2008, Philips' integrated reports and its integrated reporting website had grown in sophistication. In planning for its integrated report for 2011, the company is exploring the issues that will need to be addressed in order to produce an integrated report. KPMG is the company's auditor for both the financial and nonfinancial information contained in the integrated report, but these are covered by separate assurance opinions. Among the challenges of providing an integrated audit is getting the internal measurement and control systems for nonfinancial information to be of the same quality as for financial information. A further challenge is that the cultures of the finance function and those who work in sustainability are very different.

The U.S. financial services industry grew from 4.9% of GDP in 1980 to 7.9% of GDP in 2007. A sizeable portion of the growth can be explained by rising asset management fees, which in turn were driven by increases in the valuation of tradable assets, particularly equity. Another important factor was growth in fees associated with an expansion in household credit, particularly for residential mortgages. This expansion was itself fueled by the development of non-bank credit intermediation (or "shadow banking"). Whether the growth of the financial sector has been socially beneficial depends on one's view of active asset management, the increase in household credit, and the growth of shadow banking. While recognizing some of the benefits of professional asset management, we are skeptical about the marginal value of active asset management. We then raise concerns about whether the potential benefits of increased access to household credit—the main output of the shadow banking system—are outweighed by the risks inherent in this new approach to credit delivery.

We present evidence that high concentration in local mortgage lending reduces the sensitivity of mortgage rates and refinancing activity to mortgage-backed security (MBS) yields. A decrease in MBS yields is typically associated with greater refinancing activity and lower rates on new mortgages. However, this effect is dampened in counties with concentrated mortgage markets. We isolate the direct effect of mortgage market concentration and rule out alternative explanations based on borrower, loan, and collateral characteristics in two ways. First, we use a matching procedure to compare high- and low-concentration counties that are very similar on observable characteristics and find similar results. Second, we examine counties where concentration in mortgage lending is increased by bank mergers. We show that within a given county, sensitivities to MBS yields decrease after a concentration-increasing merger. Our results suggest that the effectiveness of housing as a monetary policy transmission channel varies in both the time series and the cross section. Increasing concentration by one standard deviation above the mean reduces the overall impact of a decline in MBS yields by approximately 50%.

General Information

Academic Programs

Alumni

Faculty & Research

Recruit

Resources

Faculty & Research

A Framework for Risk Management

About the Authors

More from these Authors

Contact

Related Links

Resources