IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/y2004idec10n2004-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What determines the credit spread?

Author

Listed:
  • John Krainer

Abstract

Although the swings in economic measures during the last recession and recovery were fairly modest, swings in financial markets were quite large. Once financial markets found their footing, after steep losses in 2000-2002, prices on virtually all traded financial claims rose as the economic outlook improved. This pattern was particularly true in the corporate bond market. In this Economic Letter I describe the significant narrowing of bond spreads across different sectors and ratings classes since the last recession. I also discuss recent research on the determinants of relative pricing in the corporate bond market.

Suggested Citation

  • John Krainer, 2004. "What determines the credit spread?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue dec10.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:y:2004:i:dec10:n:2004-36
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2004/el2004-36.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2004/el2004-36.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edwin J. Elton & Martin J. Gruber & Deepak Agrawal & Christopher Mann, 2001. "Explaining the Rate Spread on Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 247-277, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kiefer, Kerstin & Schorn, Philipp, 2007. "Auswirkungen der IFRS-Umstellung auf die Risikoprämie von Unternehmensanleihen: Eine empirische Studie für Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2007-056, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    2. Thakor, Anjan V., 2016. "The highs and the lows: A theory of credit risk assessment and pricing through the business cycle," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 1-29.
    3. Emerson Abraham Jackson & Edmund Tamuke, 2022. "Credit Risk Management and the Financial Performance of Domiciled Banks in Sierra Leone: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Economic Policy Researches, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 139-164, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jeremy Leake, 2003. "Credit spreads on sterling corporate bonds and the term structure of UK interest rates," Bank of England working papers 202, Bank of England.
    2. Zvi Eckstein & Ofer Setty & David Weiss, 2019. "Financial Risk And Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 475-516, May.
    3. Zhijian (James) Huang & Yuchen Luo, 2016. "Revisiting Structural Modeling of Credit Risk—Evidence from the Credit Default Swap (CDS) Market," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-20, May.
    4. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Schuermann, Til & Treutler, Bjorn-Jakob & Weiner, Scott M., 2006. "Macroeconomic Dynamics and Credit Risk: A Global Perspective," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1211-1261, August.
    5. Berry K. Wilson & John T. Donnellan, 2016. "The Technology of Ratings Then and Now; Hiding in Plain Sight," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(1), pages 49-74, January.
    6. Zhao, Hong & Shen, Hao & Wang, Haizhi & Zhu, Yun, 2024. "State corporate tax changes and bond pricing: U.S. evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Hong-Ming Yin & Jin Liang & Yuan Wu, 2018. "On a New Corporate Bond Pricing Model with Potential Credit Rating Change and Stochastic Interest Rate," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Nusrat Jahan, 2022. "Macroeconomic Determinants of Corporate Credit Spreads: Evidence from Canada," Carleton Economic Papers 22-07, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    9. John Y. Campbell & Glen B. Taksler, 2003. "Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2321-2350, December.
    10. Galai, Dan & Raviv, Alon & Wiener, Zvi, 2007. "Liquidation triggers and the valuation of equity and debt," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 3604-3620, December.
    11. Menz, Klaus-Michael, 2010. "Market discipline and the evaluation of Euro financial bonds--An empirical analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 315-328, September.
    12. Hilscher, Jens, 2007. "Is the corporate bond market forward looking?," Working Paper Series 800, European Central Bank.
    13. Cowan, Adrian M. & Joutz, Frederick L., 2006. "An unobserved component model of asset pricing across financial markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 86-107.
    14. Vink, Dennis, 2007. "An Empirical Analysis of Asset-Backed Securitization," MPRA Paper 10382, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Aug 2008.
    15. Tsung-Kang Chen & Yijie Tseng & Yu-Ting Hsieh, 2015. "Real Earnings Management Uncertainty and Corporate Credit Risk," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 413-440, September.
    16. Marques, Manuel O. & Pinto, João M., 2020. "A comparative analysis of ex ante credit spreads: Structured finance versus straight debt finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    17. Giesecke, Kay & Longstaff, Francis A. & Schaefer, Stephen & Strebulaev, Ilya, 2011. "Corporate bond default risk: A 150-year perspective," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 233-250.
    18. Maalaoui Chun, Olfa & Dionne, Georges & François, Pascal, 2014. "Credit spread changes within switching regimes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 41-55.
    19. Georges Dionne & Geneviève Gauthier & Khemais Hammami & Mathieu Maurice & Jean‐Guy Simonato, 2010. "Default Risk in Corporate Yield Spreads," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 707-731, June.
    20. Hartmann, Daniel & Kempa, Bernd & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2008. "Economic and financial crises and the predictability of U.S. stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 468-480, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    bond markets; Corporate bonds;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:y:2004:i:dec10:n:2004-36. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.