Credit Risk and the Term Structure of Lease Rates: A Reduced Form Approach

Previous research either assumes default free leases or leases subject to default risk using a structural approach. However, structural credit risk models suffer from a common criticism that the firm’s asset value process is unobservable. We develop a reduced form credit risk model for leases that avoids making assumptions regarding unobservable asset valuation processes. Furthermore, we assume a correlated market and credit risk that provides us with a simple analytic formula for valuing defaultable lease contracts. Numerical analysis reveals that tenant credit risk can have a substantial impact on the term structure of leases. Finally, we use the model to demonstrate the implied lease term structure for a set of retail and financial firms in the Fall of 2000.

An Empirical Investigation of Alternative Contingent Claims Models for Pricing Residential Mortgages

Researchers have employed option pricing techniques to analyze mortgage financing and valuation. Alternative models (one-, two-, and three-variable models) employing different variables (short- and long-term interest rates and building value) have been designed to price mortgage securities. No prior research has addressed the question of whether the pricing accuracy of these contingent claims models improves as states increase or whether contingent claims models' valuation abilities generate reasonable estimates of primary mortgage market prices. The articles investigates the relative efficiency of each of these alternative mortgage valuation models in predicting primary market mortgage values. Our results show that a two-variable model (short rate and building value) is the most efficient. Valuation results indicate a positive pricing spread between the primary market and the theoretically estimated value.     

Bias in an Empirical Approach to Determining Bond and Mortgage Risk Premiums

Empirical studies of bond and commercial mortgage performance often quantify a required risk premium by examining the difference between the promised yield and the realized yield as adjusted for default occurrence. These studies omit the effects of various other sources of risk, however, including collateral asset market risk, interest rate risk, and possibly call risk. These omissions downwardly bias the empirical risk premium estimate on the debt. In this paper, we disentangle and quantify the sources of this bias by modeling secured coupon debt (the commercial mortgage) as used in the calculation of a realized investment return. We consider deterministic and stochastic interest rate economies with mortgage contracts that are either noncallable or subject to a temporary prepayment lockout period. Given realistic parameter values associated with the term structure, underlying asset dynamics, and debt contracting, we show that the magnitude of the bias can be significant.     

Some Tests of the Risk-Return Relationship Using Alternative Asset Pricing Models and Observed Expected Returns

This study examines the performance of three asset pricing models: the CAPM, the APT and the UAPT using observed expected returns from a three-phase dividend discount model with Value Line analyst estimates of future company-level earnings, dividends and growth rates. Our study is the first we know of to test the three major asset pricing models using observed expected returns. Our results are similar to prior research using ex post (realized) returns in that we find that the UAPT using macroeconomic factors is the best performing model, followed by the APT and the CAPM. However, our results also suggest that the importance of macroeconomic factors is much greater to expected returns than to realized returns, and the corresponding R2 values for models using expected returns are much higher than for models using realized returns. Combining our results for the UAPT with those of Marston and Harris (1993) for the CAPM suggests that these models are more successful in tests using observed expected returns than in tests using realized returns as proxies for expected returns. Unit root tests suggest that monthly observed expected returns follow the classic random walk without drift model while monthly realized returns do not.     

利率市场化背景下县域农村金融机构的贷款定价策略——以农村商业银行为例

为适应利率市场化,农村金融机构需要设计出更加科学的利率定价机制。本文通过现有农村金融机构贷款定价机制与利率市场化内在要求的比较和与国有银行贷款定价策略的对比。分析农村金融机构现有贷款定价体系建设的滞后因素以及在利率市场化背景下影响农村金融机构贷款定价的诸多因子和程度。探索符合县域农村金融机构贷款利率定价机制,逐步提高利率定价在配置资金方面的效率。