IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fam/rpseri/rp65.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exploring for the Determinants of Credit Risk in Credit Default Swap Transaction Data: Is Fixed-Income Markets’ Information Suffcient to Evaluate Credit Risk?

Author

Listed:
  • Didier Cossin

    (HEC-University of Lausanne, IMD and FAME)

  • Tomas Hricko

    (HEC-University of Lausanne and Fame)

  • Daniel Aunon-Nerin

    (HEC-University of Lausanne and Fame)

  • Zhijiang Huang

    (HEC-University of Lausanne and Fame)

Abstract

We investigate the influence of various fundamental variables on a cross-section of credit default swap transaction data. Credit default swap rates can be seen as a superior proxy to credit risk than bond spreads are. Because we have transaction prices rather than quotes, we have thus observations of financial markets’ assessment of credit risk. Therefore our findings are relevant not only for the understanding of credit default swaps but for credit risk in general. The fundamental variables include fixed-income market data such as ratings, interest rate data and bond spreads as well as equity market data such as variance and market leverage (so called ” structural variables ”). We test for the stability of the influence of the different fundamental variables along several lines. We find evidence that most of the variables predicted by credit risk pricing theories have a significant impact on the observed levels of credit default prices. We also provide an international analysis of corporate credit risk, as half of our corporate sample is not US based, as well as some re-sults on sovereign credit risk. Using this information we are able to explain a significant portion of the cross-sectional variation in our sample with adjusted R 2 reaching 82% using the variables predicted by classical theoretical models. However there are important behavioral differences between high rated and low rated underlyings, sovereign and corporate underlyings and underlyings from different markets (US vs no US). We analyze these differences. We also find evidence of behavioral, momentum-like issues in equity markets-credit risk relationships. Overall, strong results show the importance of considering so called ”structural variables ” and equity market information as well as stochastic interest rates along with classical ratings when pricing credit risk overall. Furthermore, and contrarily to previous results, equity market information seems to matter for both high and low ratings, albeit in different ways. We implement a reduced-form model and analyze the errors obtained. Equity market variables seem to explain a large part of the errors. Overall, we document the importance of taking into account equity markets when doing credit risk analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Didier Cossin & Tomas Hricko & Daniel Aunon-Nerin & Zhijiang Huang, 2002. "Exploring for the Determinants of Credit Risk in Credit Default Swap Transaction Data: Is Fixed-Income Markets’ Information Suffcient to Evaluate Credit Risk?," FAME Research Paper Series rp65, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    • Handle: RePEc:fam:rpseri:rp65
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.swissfinanceinstitute.ch/rp65.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:eufman:v:4:y:1998:i:1:p:65-77 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leland, Hayne E & Toft, Klaus Bjerre, 1996. "Optimal Capital Structure, Endogenous Bankruptcy, and the Term Structure of Credit Spreads," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 987-1019, July.
    3. Altman, Edward I. & Saunders, Anthony, 1997. "Credit risk measurement: Developments over the last 20 years," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(11-12), pages 1721-1742, December.
    4. Katz, Steven, 1974. "The Price Adjustment Process of Bonds to Rating Reclassifications: A Test of Bond Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 551-559, May.
    5. Nickell, Pamela & Perraudin, William & Varotto, Simone, 2000. "Stability of rating transitions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 203-227, January.
    6. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    7. Patrick Houweling & Ton Vorst, 2001. "An Empirical Comparison of Default Swap Pricing Models," Finance 0112003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Batten, Jonathan & Ellis, Craig & Hogan, Warren, 2002. "Scaling the volatility of credit spreads: Evidence from Australian dollar eurobonds," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 331-344.
    9. Claessens, Stijn & Pennacchi, George, 1996. "Estimating the Likelihood of Mexican Default from the Market Prices of Brady Bonds," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 109-126, March.
    10. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    11. Harvey, Campbell R., 1988. "The real term structure and consumption growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 305-333, December.
    12. Henri LOUBERGÉ, & Harris SCHLESINGER, 2001. "Coping with Credit Risk," FAME Research Paper Series rp36, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    13. Klein, Peter, 1996. "Pricing Black-Scholes options with correlated credit risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 1211-1229, August.
    14. Robert A. Jarrow & David Lando & Stuart M. Turnbull, 2008. "A Markov Model for the Term Structure of Credit Risk Spreads," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Derivatives Pricing Selected Works of Robert Jarrow, chapter 18, pages 411-453, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Barry Eichengreen & Ashoka Mody, 1998. "What Explains Changing Spreads on Emerging-Market Debt: Fundamentals or Market Sentiment?," NBER Working Papers 6408, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Pinches, George E & Singleton, J Clay, 1978. "The Adjustment of Stock Prices to Bond Rating Changes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(1), pages 29-44, March.
    17. Cossin, Didier & Pirotte, Hugues, 1997. "Swap credit risk: An empirical investigation on transaction data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(10), pages 1351-1373, October.
    18. Kaufold, Howard & Smirlock, Michael, 1991. "The impact of credit risk on the pricing and duration of floating-rate notes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 43-52, February.
    19. Sanjiv Ranjan Das & Rangarajan K. Sundaram, 2000. "A Discrete-Time Approach to Arbitrage-Free Pricing of Credit Derivatives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(1), pages 46-62, January.
    20. Robert A. Jarrow & Stuart M. Turnbull, 2008. "Pricing Derivatives on Financial Securities Subject to Credit Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Derivatives Pricing Selected Works of Robert Jarrow, chapter 17, pages 377-409, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    21. Lopez, Jose A. & Saidenberg, Marc R., 2000. "Evaluating credit risk models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 151-165, January.
    22. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1995. "A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Fixed and Floating Rate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 789-819, July.
    23. Henri Loubergé & Harris Schlesinger, 2005. "Coping with credit risk," Journal of Risk Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(2), pages 118-134, April.
    24. Gregory D. Sutton, 1998. "Spread overreaction in international bond markets," BIS Working Papers 55, Bank for International Settlements.
    25. Hugues Pirotte & Didier Cossin, 1998. "How well do classical credit risk pricing models fit swap transaction data?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/191829, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Augusto Castillo, 2004. "Firm and Corporate Bond Valuation: A Simulation Dynamic Programming Approach," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 41(124), pages 345-360.
    2. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    3. Maclachlan, Iain C, 2007. "An empirical study of corporate bond pricing with unobserved capital structure dynamics," MPRA Paper 28416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Nystrom, Kaj & Skoglund, Jimmy, 2006. "A credit risk model for large dimensional portfolios with application to economic capital," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 2163-2197, August.
    5. Lekkos, Ilias, 2007. "Modelling multiple term structures of defaultable bonds with common and idiosyncratic state variables," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 783-817, December.
    6. repec:wyi:journl:002109 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Stephen Zamore & Kwame Ohene Djan & Ilan Alon & Bersant Hobdari, 2018. "Credit Risk Research: Review and Agenda," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(4), pages 811-835, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Diaz Weigel, Diana & Gemmill, Gordon, 2006. "What drives credit risk in emerging markets? The roles of country fundamentals and market co-movements," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 476-502, April.
    10. 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.
    11. Cumby, Robert E. & Pastine, Tuvana, 2001. "Emerging market debt: measuring credit quality and examining relative pricing," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 591-609, October.
    12. Trueck, Stefan & Rachev, Svetlozar T., 2008. "Rating Based Modeling of Credit Risk," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780123736833.
    13. Rösch, Daniel & Scheule, Harald, 2009. "The Empirical Relation between Credit Quality, Recovery and Correlation," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-418, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    14. Hugues Pirotte, 1999. "Implementing a Structural Valuation Model of Swap Credit-Sensitive Rates," Working Papers CEB 99-001.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Batten, Jonathan & Hogan, Warren, 2002. "A perspective on credit derivatives," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 251-278.
    16. Tsung-Kang Chen & Hsien-Hsing Liao & Chia-Wu Lu, 2011. "A flow-based corporate credit model," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 517-532, May.
    17. Duffie, Darrell, 2005. "Credit risk modeling with affine processes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 2751-2802, November.
    18. Kim, Dong H. & Stock, Duane, 2014. "The effect of interest rate volatility and equity volatility on corporate bond yield spreads: A comparison of noncallables and callables," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 20-35.
    19. Samuel Chege Maina, 2011. "Credit Risk Modelling in Markovian HJM Term Structure Class of Models with Stochastic Volatility," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2011, January-A.
    20. Suresh M. Sundaresan, 2000. "Continuous‐Time Methods in Finance: A Review and an Assessment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1569-1622, August.
    21. Duffie, Darrell, 2003. "Intertemporal asset pricing theory," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 639-742, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:fam:rpseri:rp65. 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: Ridima Mittal (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fameech.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.