In order to capture observed asymmetric dependence in international financial returns, we construct a multivariate regime-switching model of copulas. We model dependence with one Gaussian and one canonical vine copula regime. Canonical vines are constructed from bivariate conditional copulas and provide a very flexible way of characterizing dependence in multivariate settings. We apply the model to returns from the G5 and Latin American regions, and document two main findings. First, we discover that models with canonical vines generally dominate alternative dependence structures. Second, the choice of copula is important for risk management, because it modifies the Value at Risk (VaR) of international portfolio returns. JEL Classification codes: C32, C35, G10.

In order to capture observed asymmetric dependence in international financial returns, we construct a multivariate regime-switching model of copulas. We model dependence with one Gaussian and one canonical vine copula regime. Canonical vines are constructed from bivariate conditional copulas and provide a very flexible way of characterizing dependence in multivariate settings. We apply the model to returns from the G5 and Latin American regions, and document two main findings. First, we discover that models with canonical vines generally dominate alternative dependence structures. Second, the choice of copula is important for risk management, because it modifies the Value at Risk (VaR) of international portfolio returns. JEL Classification codes: C32, C35, G10.

We derive the Kendall and Spearman rank correlation coefficients of the bivariate skew normal (SN) distribution. For a given correlation parameter, we provide conditions on the shape parameters, under which the SN is more dependent than the normal in terms of each of the two-rank correlations. We further show how our results can be used for rank-based estimation procedures of the correlation parameter and the equal shape parameter of the SN, whose consistency and asymptotic normality we establish.

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