Introducing Global Term Structure in a Risk Parity Framework

Abstract

In this paper, we aim at constructing a global risk model using the term structure from major bond-issuing countries. The goal is twofold: first this allows quantifying global interest rate risk (level, slope and curvature effects), providing insights on global risks at play. Secondly, such information could be used in order to design sovereign bond indexes in a risk parity framework where each country's sensitivity to global interest risk is accounted for. More specifically, we propose two innovative indexing schemes, a first one where we equalize contribution to global level risk exposures across countries, and a second one where we turn to level, slope and curvature risk exposures within a country. Indeed at the country level, only parallel (level) risk matters, while when turning to maturity buckets within a country, non parallel risks (slope and curvature) have to be accounted for. Finally, we demonstrate that the conjunctive use of these two approaches allows to efficiently tackle exposure to global interest rate risk while providing appealing improvements in the risk-return profile.