Multivariate regular variation is a key concept that has been applied in finance, insurance, and risk management. This paper proposes a new dependence assumption via a framework of multivariate regular variation. Under the condition that financial and insurance risks satisfy our assumption, we conduct asymptotic analyses for multidimensional ruin probabilities in the discrete-time and continuous-time cases. Also, we present a two-dimensional numerical example satisfying our assumption, through which we show the accuracy of the asymptotic result for the discrete-time multidimensional insurance risk model.

Tail asymptotics of the solution R to a fixed-point problem of the type R=DQ+∑1NRm are derived under heavy-tailed conditions allowing both dependence between Q and N and the tails to be of the same order of magnitude. Similar results are derived for a K-class version with applications to multi-type branching processes and busy periods in multi-class queues.

The extremes of a univariate Markov chain with regularly varying stationary marginal distribution and asymptotically linear behavior are known to exhibit a multiplicative random walk structure called the tail chain. In this paper we extend this fact to Markov chains with multivariate regularly varying marginal distributions in Rd. We analyze both the forward and the backward tail process and show that they mutually determine each other through a kind of adjoint relation. In a broader setting, we will show that even for non-Markovian underlying processes a Markovian forward tail chain always implies that the backward tail chain is also Markovian. We analyze the resulting class of limiting processes in detail. Applications of the theory yield the asymptotic distribution of both the past and the future of univariate and multivariate stochastic difference equations conditioned on an extreme event.

We study the relations between the tail order of copulas and hidden regular variation (HRV) on subcones generated by order statistics. Multivariate regular variation (MRV) and HRV deal with extremal dependence of random vectors with Pareto-like univariate margins. Alternatively, if one uses a copula to model the dependence structure of a random vector then the upper exponent and tail order functions can be used to capture the extremal dependence structure. After defining upper exponent functions on a series of subcones, we establish the relation between the tail order of a copula and the tail indexes for MRV and HRV. We show that upper exponent functions of a copula and intensity measures of MRV/HRV can be represented by each other, and the upper exponent function on subcones can be expressed by a Pickands-type integral representation. Finally, a mixture model is given with the mixing random vector leading to the finite-directional measure in a product-measure representation of HRV intensity measures.

An asymptotic model for the extreme behavior of certain Markov chains is the ‘tail chain’. Generally taking the form of a multiplicative random walk, it is useful in deriving extremal characteristics, such as point process limits. We place this model in a more general context, formulated in terms of extreme value theory for transition kernels, and extend it by formalizing the distinction between extreme and nonextreme states. We make the link between the update function and transition kernel forms considered in previous work, and we show that the tail chain model leads to a multivariate regular variation property of the finite-dimensional distributions under assumptions on the marginal tails alone.

We discuss risk diversification in multivariate regularly varying models and provide explicit formulas for Value-at-Risk asymptotics in this case. These results allow us to study the influence of the portfolio weights, the overall loss severity, and the tail dependence structure on large portfolio losses. We outline sufficient conditions for the sub- and superadditivity of the asymptotic portfolio risk in multivariate regularly varying models and discuss the case when these conditions are not satisfied. We provide several examples to illustrate the resulting variety of diversification effects and the crucial impact of the tail dependence structure in infinite mean models. These examples show that infinite means in multivariate regularly varying models do not necessarily imply negative diversification effects. This implication is true if there is no loss-gain compensation in the tails, but not in general. Depending on the loss-gain compensation, asymptotic portfolio risk can be subadditive, superadditive, or neither.

The modeling of insurance risks has received an increasing amount of attention because of solvency capital requirements. The ruin probability has become a standard risk measure to assess regulatory capital. In this paper we focus on discrete-time models for the finite time horizon. Several results are available in the literature to calibrate the ruin probability by means of the sum of the tail probabilities of individual claim amounts. The aim of this work is to obtain asymptotics for such probabilities under multivariate regular variation and, more precisely, to derive them from extensions of Breiman's theorem. We thus present new situations where the ruin probability admits computable equivalents. We also derive asymptotics for the value at risk.

We consider regular variation of a Lévy process X := (Xt)t≥0 in with Lévy measure Π, emphasizing the dependence between jumps of its components. By transforming the one-dimensional marginal Lévy measures to those of a standard 1-stable Lévy process, we decouple the marginal Lévy measures from the dependence structure. The dependence between the jumps is modeled by a so-called Pareto Lévy measure, which is a natural standardization in the context of regular variation. We characterize multivariate regularly variation of X by its one-dimensional marginal Lévy measures and the Pareto Lévy measure. Moreover, we define upper and lower tail dependence coefficients for the Lévy measure, which also apply to the multivariate distributions of the process. Finally, we present graphical tools to visualize the dependence structure in terms of the spectral density and the tail integral for homogeneous and nonhomogeneous Pareto Lévy measures.

Multivariate Lévy-driven mixed moving average (MMA) processes of the type Xt = ∬f(A, t - s)Λ(dA, ds) cover a wide range of well known and extensively used processes such as Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes, superpositions of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (supOU) processes, (fractionally integrated) continuous-time autoregressive moving average processes, and increments of fractional Lévy processes. In this paper we introduce multivariate MMA processes and give conditions for their existence and regular variation of the stationary distributions. Furthermore, we study the tail behavior of multivariate supOU processes and of a stochastic volatility model, where a positive semidefinite supOU process models the stochastic volatility.

The tail dependence of multivariate distributions is frequently studied via the tool of copulas. In this paper we develop a general method, which is based on multivariate regular variation, to evaluate the tail dependence of heavy-tailed scale mixtures of multivariate distributions, whose copulas are not explicitly accessible. Tractable formulae for tail dependence parameters are derived, and a sufficient condition under which the parameters are monotone with respect to the heavy tail index is obtained. The multivariate elliptical distributions are discussed to illustrate the results.

The tail behavior of sums of dependent risks was considered by Wüthrich (2003) and by Alink et al. (2004, 2005) in the case where the variables are exchangeable and connected through an Archimedean copula model. It is shown here how their result can be extended to a broader class of dependence structures using multivariate extreme-value theory. An explicit form is given for the asymptotic probability of extremal events, and the behavior of the latter is studied as a function of the indices of regular variation of both the copula and the common distribution of the risks.

We study the tail behavior of regularly varying infinitely divisible random vectors and additive processes, i.e. stochastic processes with independent but not necessarily stationary increments. We show that the distribution of an infinitely divisible random vector is tail equivalent to its Lévy measure and we study the asymptotic decay of the probability for an additive process to hit sets far away from the origin. The results are extensions of known univariate results to the multivariate setting; we exemplify some of the difficulties that arise in the multivariate case.

If {Xj, } is a sequence of i.i.d. random vectors in , when do there exist scaling constants bn > 0 such that the sequence of random sets converges almost surely in the space of compact subsets of to a limit set? A multivariate regular variation condition on a properly defined distribution tail guarantees the almost sure convergence but without certain regularity conditions surprises can occur. When a density exists, an exponential form of regular variation plus some regularity guarantees the convergence.