# Intuitive explanation for expectiles

I am looking for an intuitive explanation for expectiles.

Bellini and Di Bernardino: Risk Management with Expectiles, European Journal of Finance, May 2015

Definition of expectiles by paper above

Since ES lacks elicitability it seems that some researchers are moving on to expectiles.

Can anybody give an intuitve explanation for expectiles and what they represent.

This isn't 100% true but maybe one could argue that $ES_{97.5}$ is the equivalent to $VaR_{99}$. What would be the equivalent expectile?

• Notice that $(X-x)_-=(x-X)_+$. So the expectile can be interpreted as the strike of a put and call option such that their prices are in proportion $q/(1-q)$ to one another, by condition (2). If the expectation is taken w.r.t. risk-neutral pricing measure of course. – Raskolnikov Jan 25 '18 at 14:03
• I don't think this has much to do with risk neutral pricing. But I am not sure. As far as I understand q stands for quantile not the risk neutral probability. – PalimPalim Jan 25 '18 at 14:06
• I never said it did. I just gave a possible interpretation within the context of $\mathbb{E}$ being taken w.r.t. risk-neutral pricing measure. P.S. what definition of ES do you use? – Raskolnikov Jan 25 '18 at 14:08
• True, thank you. – PalimPalim Jan 25 '18 at 14:11
• This is my definition of ES mean above corresponding VaR $ES_\alpha = \frac{1}{1-\alpha} \int_\alpha^1 VaR_u(L)du$ the empirical version is mean of all observations above VaR – PalimPalim Jan 25 '18 at 14:20

Suppose the curvy dashed line in my picture represents a cumulative distribution function of some random variable X. Then blue part corresponds exactly to $\mathbb{E}[(X-x)_+]$, while the orange surface corresponds to $\mathbb{E}[(X-x)_-]$. In the picture $x=1$. Now if the proportion of the blue and orange surface is equal to $(1-q)/q$, then we can say that $x$ is the $q$-expectile for this distribution.
How does this connect to the expected shortfall? Well, the ES as you defined it is exactly the blue surface divided by $1-\alpha$ for the value of $\alpha$ such that $\text{VaR}_{\alpha}[X]=x$, i.e.
$$\mathbb{E}[(X-x)_+]=(1-\alpha)\text{ES}_{\alpha}[X] \; .$$
• Indeed, Omega is the ratio of the blue and orange surfaces. So, setting the ratio to a fixed number determines a value $x$ and that's your expectile. So, expectile is the inverse function of Omega. – Raskolnikov Feb 7 '18 at 11:58