8008 Exam Dumps - PRMIA PRM Certification Questions and Answers

Survivorship bias is the tendency for failed companies, funds, investments and even entire markets (eg Russian stock market returns after the Communist revolution) to be excluded from performance studies because they no longer exist. Survivorship bias results in past results looking better than they actually were as data points relating to failures are not included.

A risk manager needs to be aware of survivorship bias when basing risk analysis on historical data and should question if failures (eg failed funds, delisted companies etc) have been included in the data he or she is relying upon.

In statistics, which is relevant to risk management, a distinction is often drawn between 'frequentists' and 'Bayesians'. Frequentists rely upon data to draw conclusions as to probabilities. Bayesians consider conditional probabilities, ie, take into account what things are already known, and inject sometimes subjective a-priori probabilities into the calculations. Statement I describes Bayesians, and not frequentists. In reality however, the difference is merely academic. Risk managers use whichever technique best applies to the given situation without making it about ideology.

The difference between 'Knightian uncertainty' and 'Risk' is similarly academic. Knightian uncertainty refers to risk that cannot be measured or calculated. 'Risk' on the other hand refers to things for which past data exists and calculations of exposure can be made. To give an example in the context of the financial world, the risk from a pandemic creating systemic failures from a failure of payment and settlement systems and the like is 'Knightian uncertainty', but the market risk from equity price movements can be modeled (albeit with limitations) and is calculable. Statement II is therefore correct.

Once a risk is identified, it can be mitigated, accepted, avoided or eliminated, or transferred by way of insurance. Therefore statement III is correct.

Confidence accounting is a conceptual idea that suggests that accounting statements make reference to ranges as opposed to point estimates in financial statements. For example, instead of saying that the pension obligation is $xx million, the company should say the pension obligation is in a range of $xx m - $yy m with a certain confidence level. Statement IV is therefore inaccurate.

Probability of the joint default of both A and B =

We know all the numbers except default correlation, and we can solve for it.

Default Correlation*SQRT(0.03*(1 - 0.03)*0.08*(1 - 0.08)) + 0.03*0.08 = 0.014.

Solving, we get default correlation = 25%

Statement I is correct. Economic capital is the capital available to absorb unexpected losses, and credit ratings are also based upon a certain probability of default. Economic capital is often calculated at a level equal to the confidence required for the desired credit rating. For example, if the probability of default for a AA rating is 0.02%, then economic capital maintained at a 99.98% would allow for such a rating. Economic capital set at a 99.8% level can be thought of as the level of losses that would not be exceeded with a 99.8% probability.

Loss distributions are the product of the severity and frequency distributions, each of which are estimated separately. The total loss distribution is affected far more by the severity distribution than by the frequency distribution, therefore statement II is correct.

The Loss Distribution Approach (LDA) is one of the ways in which the requirements of the AMA can be satisfied, and not the other way round. Therefore statement III is incorrect.

Statement IV is correct as the total loss distribution is estimated using separate estimates of loss frequency and distributions.

Choice 'd' represents the Basel II requirement, all other choices are incorrect.

A LIBOR based loan requires cash to move from the lender to the borrower in the amount of the notional. The Overnight Index Swap requires only the exchange of interest payments, and therefore represents less risk.

Therefore the LIBOR based loan is a riskier exposure.

The LIBOR is generally higher than the OIS. In fact, the difference between the two, the LIBOR-OIS spread, is a standard measure of the risk premium in the market that goes up when the risk of default by counterparty banks is considered high. This is because when the market perceives the risk of default to be high, the participants need a risk premium to take on the default risk which is considerably lesser with the OIS.

The greatest model risk when calculating operational risk capital comes from incorrect assumptions about correlations between different operational risks for which standalone risk calculations have been made. Generally, the correlation can be expected to be positive, and would therefore vary between 0 and 1. These two values determine the 'bounds' between which the total operational risk capital would lie, and these bounds are generally quite far apart. Therefore the total value of the operational risk capital is very sensitive to the value chosen for the correlation, and this is the source of the biggest model risk under the AMA.

The probability that the security would not default in the next 4 years is equal to the probability of survival raised to the power four. In other words, =(1 - 3%)^4 = 88.53%. Choice 'b' is the correct answer.

If annual variance is 0.0256, then annual volatility (ie standard deviation) is √0.0256. Therefore the daily volatility will be √0.0256/√250 = 1.01%. The other choices are not correct.

Expected value = $90 ($100 - 10%)

Value at 99% confidence level = $65

Therefore economic capital required at this level of confidence = $90 - $65 = $25.

Choice 'a' is the correct answer, the other choices are not.

(We can also look at it this way as explained in section III.B.6.2.2 of the handbook: Economic capital is designed to absorb unexpected losses, which are equal to total losses at a given confidence level minus expected losses. (Expected losses are to be covered by credit reserves). Total losses are $100-$65=$35, and expected losses are 10%*$100=$10, therefore economic capital should be $35-$10=$25.)