The exchange rate risk of Chinese yuan: Using VaR and ES based on extreme value theory

Abstract

This paper applies extreme value theory (EVT) to estimate the tails of return series of Chinese yuan (CNY) exchange rates. We find that the degree of fitting Pareto distribution to the data of the tail of return series is extremely high. The empirical results indicate that expected shortfall cannot improve the tail risk problem of value-at-risk (VaR). The evidence of back testing indicates that EVT-based VaR values underestimate the risks of exchange rates such as USD/CNY and HKD/CNY, which may be caused by the continuous appreciation of CNY against USD and HKD. However, compared with VaR values calculated by historical simulation and variance–covariance method, VaR values calculated by EVT can measure the risk more accurately for the exchange rates of JPY/CNY and EUR/CNY.