The ineffectiveness of coherent risk measures

Abstract: We show that coherent risk measures are ineffective in curbing the behaviour of investors with limited liability or excessive tail-risk seeking behaviour if the market admits statistical arbitrage opportunities which we term $\rho$-arbitrage for a risk measure $\rho$. We show how to determine analytically whether such $\rho$-arbitrage portfolios exist in complete markets and in the Markowitz model. We also consider realistic numerical examples of incomplete markets and determine whether expected shortfall constraints are ineffective in these markets. We find that the answer depends heavily upon the probability model selected by the risk manager but that it is certainly possible for expected shortfall constraints to be ineffective in realistic markets. Since value at risk constraints are weaker than expected shortfall constraints, our results can be applied to value at risk. By contrast, we show that reasonable expected utility constraints are effective in any arbitrage-free market.