Determinants of the distance between sovereign credit ratings and sub-sovereign bond ratings: Evidence from emerging markets and developing economies

This article explores factors that affect the distance between sovereign credit ratings and the ratings assigned to new foreign-currency bonds issued by sub-sovereign entities (such as private non-financial corporations, financial firms, and public sector enterprises) in 47 emerging markets and developing economies. Censored and double-hurdle regression models are used to estimate the relative contributions of bond-level, issuer-level, and macroeconomic factors that determine this distance, separately for those rated at or below the sovereign rating and those rated above. For the three quarters or more of sub-sovereign bond ratings that are constrained by the sovereign rating ceiling, a Tobit regression model shows a smaller distance – suggesting stronger sovereign–corporate linkages – for public sector enterprises and financial firms relative to other firms. Riskier global financial conditions are also associated with sub-sovereign bonds being rated closer to the sovereign rating. For the small number of sub-sovereign bonds rated higher than the sovereign rating, a double-hurdle model shows that certain debt features – such as bonds backed by future-flow receivables or other collateral or structured as Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) – significantly raise the likelihood of piercing the sovereign rating ceiling and also increase the distance above the sovereign ceiling.     

Impact of sovereign rating changes on stock market co-movements: the case of Latin America

We aim to determine if long-term foreign currency sovereign rating assessments (from S&P, Moody’s and Fitch) for the advanced emerging Latin American countries (Brazil, Mexico and Chile) have any significant effect on the correlation between their stock market returns in the last decade. With that purpose in mind, we obtain the time-varying correlation by cDCC modeling using ARX-APARCH filtered returns. The analysis shows that the rating changes do not have a significant effect on the correlations in general. After testing for robustness, we reveal that an upgrade to an investment grade level for a country is more likely to positively diversify it from others in the region instead of creating a common positive regional investment environment. Results have important implications for investors and policymakers.     

Risks of Latin America sovereign debts before and after the financial crisis

We investigate the financial determinants of the return and volatility of sovereign CDS spread from six major Latin American countries before and after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Other than CBOE VIX index, we also find that global factors including US Baa–Aaa default yield, TED spread and US Treasury rate all contribute to the changes in these sovereign CDS spread. Although global risk aversion (VIX) is a significant determinant of sovereign debt spread, in the years after the crisis, the emphasis has shifted towards short-term refinancing risk (TED). Furthermore, the risk of Greek sovereign debt crisis also transmitted Latin American CDS spreads immediately, but only in the post-Lehman sub-period. These findings provide implications for international bonds and credit derivatives trading strategies.     

The democratic (dis)advantage: The conditional impact of democracy on credit risk and sovereign default

Many have argued that democracies are able to make credible commitments to repay their debts and consequently enjoy higher sovereign credit ratings. In contrast to this expectation, I argue that the advantage of democracies in credit ratings is conditional on the countries' level of financial vulnerability and adjustment needs. Because democracies have more diffuse decision-making and are more accountable to the public, they encounter greater difficulty than autocracies in passing unpopular economic adjustment measures. Thus, I argue that democracies with high debt levels and low foreign reserve assets experience worse credit outcomes, whereas democracies with low vulnerability experience more positive outcomes. In a sample of up to 96 developing countries, I show that democracies have worse credit ratings and CDS Spreads and are more likely to default than their autocratic counterparts when foreign reserves are low relative to external debt. Notably, I also show that large debt burdens increase credit risk mainly in more democratic countries. I further test the causal pathway of the democratic advantage by constructing democracy scores of “market-friendly” and “adjustment-difficulty” democracy, finding that democracy worsens debt outcomes due to adjustment difficulty. These findings help to revise and clarify the causal logic surrounding the democratic advantage hypothesis.     

Dynamic interdependence of sovereign credit default swaps in BRICS and MIST countries

This article examines the interactions of emerging markets sovereign credit default swaps (CDS). Using a generalized vector autoregressive framework and principal component analysis, we find significant spillover effects within the two groups of emerging markets under study. Using the principal component analysis, we show that global financial market factors are important drivers of BRICS and MIST sovereign CDS spreads variability. Focusing on the forecast error variance decomposition, most of the spillover effects are documented among the emerging markets CDS. Brazil and Mexico contribute the largest net directional spillovers to the other emerging markets studied.

Highlights:

• There exist significant CDS spillover effects for MIST and BRICS countries.

• Mexico dominates the spillover effects within the MIST group while Brazil dominates the spillover effects within the BRICS group.

• As determined by principal component analysis, global financial market factors are important drivers of BRICS and MIST sovereign CDS spreads variability.

• There exists a relatively small net directional spillover from global financial market factors to the countries under study; however, the total spillover is time-varying.

• A large proportion of the forecast error variance in the markets studied comes from spillovers.

     

The impact of political institutions on U.S. state bond yields during crises: evidence from the 2008 credit market seizure

This study examines how political institutions mediate bond market reactions to severe economic crisis, based on U.S. states’ experience of the 2008 credit market seizure. Following severe fiscal shocks, political institutions assume greater importance in assessing risk characteristics of state bonds. The bond market reacts most strongly to two factors: public sector union strength in a state and the proportion of Democrats in the state legislature. We suggest that the identity of political institutions becomes increasingly important, during periods of economic crises, when credit markets might expect that political systems can no longer delay stabilisations and must deliver policy.     

The price of the euro: evidence from sovereign debt markets

The objective of this article is to ascertain how the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in Europe has affected its members’ long-term government bond yields. In order to estimate the effect, this article utilizes a synthetic control approach. The main finding is that the majority of the member countries did not receive economic gains from the EMU in sovereign debt markets. Synthetic counterfactual analysis finds strong evidence that Austria, Belgium, Finland, France and the Netherlands have paid a positive and substantial euro-premium in their 10-year government bonds since the adoption of the single currency. After the most recent financial crisis, government bond yields have been higher in all member countries compared to the situation that would have occurred without the monetary unification. This article concludes that from the viewpoint of sovereign borrowing, it would be beneficial for a country to maintain its own currency and monetary policy.     

对我国商业银行信用风险管理的思考

信用风险已经成为我国商业银行面临的严峻挑战。我国商业银行信用风险管理需要解决基础数据、科学评价客户信用、建立信用风险管理文化等一系列问题。     

Sovereign default risk and state-owned bank fragility in emerging markets: evidence from China and Russia

In this paper we investigate the interdependence of the sovereign default risk and banking system fragility in two major emerging markets, China and Russia, using credit default swaps as a proxy for default risk. Both countries’ banking industries have strong ties with their governments and public sector, even after a series of significant reforms in the last two decades. Our analysis is built on the case studies of each country’s two biggest banks. We employ a bivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) and vector error correction (VECM) framework to analyse the short- and long-run dynamics of the chosen CDS prices. We use Granger causality to describe the direction of the discovered dynamics. We find evidence of a stable long-run relationship between sovereign and bank CDS spreads in the chosen time period. The more stable relationship is found in cases where the biggest state-owned universal banks in emerging markets are closely managed by the government. But the fragility of those banks does not directly affect the state of public finances. However, in cases where state-owned banks directly participate in large governmental projects, banking fragility may result in the deterioration of state funds, while raising the risk of sovereign default.     

Exploring the mismatch between credit ratings and loss-given-default: A credit risk approach

It is commonly observed that high grade loans with better ratings are often associated with low recoveries if they default (i.e. with relatively high loss-given-default (LGD)). To address the mismatch problem, this paper proposes a credit risk approach by minimizing LGD for higher rated loans as a risk-rating matching standard in the sense that the decreasing LGD from creditors’ perspective is associated with higher credit rating for the borrower. This standard forces customers’ credit rating of each grade to be optimally determined in correspondence to its LGD, which means the LGD of high grade loans tends to be low. The approach is then tested using three credit datasets from China, i.e. credit data from 2044 farmers, 2157 small private businesses and 3111 SMEs. The empirical results show that the proposed approach indeed guides the way to solve the mismatch phenomenon between credit ratings and LGDs in the existing credit rating literature. By optimally determining credit ratings, the findings derived from this paper help provide a valuable reference for bankers, and bond investors to manage their credit risk.     

黑龙江省农村金融领域的信用风险及其防范

信用是市场经济的基础,也是市场经济的必然产物,因此,信用风险一旦发生就会对经济发展产生诸多不利影响,在金融领域的影响尤为严重。中国作为一个农业大国,农村金融领域发生信用风险就会严重地制约经济的总体发展水平。因此,从农村金融的角度,以黑龙江省为例,提出合理防范农村金融领域的信用风险,对黑龙江省整体县域经济发展具有重要意义。基于此,分析了农村金融领域信用风险产生的原因和对区域性农业经济发展的影响,提出了相应的风险防范措施.     

Political uncertainty,risk of Frexit and European sovereign spreads

Using data from a prediction market (crowd-based forecasts), we build a daily measure capturing the risk of Frexit related to the 2017 French presidential elections. We study how unexpected changes in this new measure of political uncertainty in France affect European sovereign spreads vis-à-vis Germany. We show that our uncertainty proxy drives not only the French sovereign spread but also the spreads of those EU countries deemed the most vulnerable to the risk of desegregation of the Euro Zone. These results suggest that specific political uncertainty affects short-term investor’s expectations and may outweigh other economic determinants of sovereign spreads shortly prior to high stake elections     

有关外贸企业信用风险及其管理的研究

随着我国市场经济的不断发展,外贸企业之间的竞争日益激烈。很多外贸企业为了占据国外市场,会推出优惠的信用条件,以此作为增加客户的手段,但其信用风险也会随之增加。分析了导致外贸企业信用风险增加的原因,并提出对应管理措施。只有不断降低信用风险,以此提高外贸企业的竞争力,才能使企业不断扩大经营规模,促进企业的不断发展。     

主权信用评级对证券市场的影响研究述评

国际证券市场的持续动荡,使得主权信用评级的影响作用越加突现。诸多研究指出,主权信用评级调整对股票市场和债券市场都存在影响,但由于市场对信息的敏感程度不同,股票市场比债券市场的反应剧烈,而且股票市场对主权信用评级调整能作出提前响应。由于市场预期和经济周期的合力作用,市场存在着对正负评级变化的不对称反应。因此,对现有文献进行梳理和评议,一方面增进了人们对这一问题的认识和理解,另一方面也为制定风险防范政策提供了一定的参考依据。     

我国企业债券信用利差宏观决定因素研究

文章以Merton(1974)的结构化模型为基础,基于2000年2月至2010年9月的面板数据,对影响我国沪深债市企业债券信用利差因素进行了实证研究。研究结果表明,GDP指数和M1发行量对企业债券信用利差的影响为正,无风险利率和收益率曲线斜率的影响为负。此外,模型的解释力明显随信用级别的降低而提高,且加入非线性变量和前期变量后模型的拟合度大幅提高,说明新模型更加符合实际情况。     

国家主权信用评级、跨国传染与股票市场回应?--基于全球48个经济体的事件研究

掌握主权信用评级变动的市场影响及其传染机制,对于投资者、国家金融安全及政府采取应对措施来说都意义重大。文章采用事件研究法,以1990-2013年全球48个经济体发生的评级事件和每日股指收益率数据为样本,实证研究了事件国评级变动对非事件国股票市场的影响及其传染渠道,结果表明：(1)评级下调会对股票市场产生显著为负的超额收益,但评级上调产生的超额收益不显著;(2)股票市场可以提前预测评级下调事件,但不能预测评级上调事件;(3)季风效应对评级调整的市场传染有一定的解释力;(4)净传染效应基本不显著,这说明评级事件的市场传染应该有经济基础,而不是由投资者心理预期这类非基本面因素造成的;(5)溢出效应可以较好地解释评级的市场传染,是评级变动影响市场及传染的主要渠道。文章的结论深化了我们对评级调整如何影响股票市场及其传染渠道的认识,也为中国防范国外主权信用评级变动风险提供了有益启示。     

Equity market information and credit risk signaling: A quantile cointegrating regression approach

Investigating linkages between credit and equity markets, we consider daily aggregate U.S. CDS spreads as well as well-chosen equity market and implied volatility indexes over ten years. We describe such robust (to spurious correlation) relationship with the quantile cointegrating regression approach. Such approach handles extreme quantiles/CDS values and their behavior with respect to the equity market's influence. Heteroskedastic patterns such as time-varying variance, but also autocorrelation, skewness and leptokurtosis are captured. Thus, the sensitivity of aggregate CDS spreads to equity market price and volatility channels is accurately measured across quantiles and spreads. Such quantile-dependent sensitivity exhibits asymmetric responses to equity market shocks. A sub-period analysis investigates potential regime shifts in estimated quantile cointegrating regressions. Quantile cointegrating coefficients vary over time and quantiles, and exhibit different magnitudes across sub-periods and spreads. Therefore, the relationship is unstable over time. We also propose a scenario analysis and risk signaling application for credit risk management prospects. Under specific risk levels, credit risky situations are described conditional on the equity market's information over time, and related expected aggregate CDS spreads are computed. Estimated conditional quantiles/CDS spreads act as credit alert triggers.     

新疆银行信贷规模对于经济增长贡献实证分析

通过采集1990—2010年共21年来新疆各项贷款合计数据与GDP数据,运用回归分析模型和Granger因果检验,分析了信贷规模与GDP之间的关系。分析结果表明（：1）新疆信贷规模与GDP之间存在显著的关联关系;（2）信贷规模的短期波动对GDP有着显著的正影响,其弹性系数为1.19;（3）在短时期内,信贷是带动新疆GDP增长的原因之一,但长时期内,信贷规模与经济增长两者间不具有因果关系。     

美国信用评级机构反垄断规制研究

安然事件之后,尤其是次贷危机爆发之后,美国信用评级寡头市场结构备受关注,人们认为三大评级机构的垄断势力对信用评级质量下降有着不可推卸的责任。理论界对于信用评级市场是否需要促进竞争和如何促进竞争的问题争论不休。美国政府通过发布规则对改善信用评级的市场结构作出了一些尝试,并取得了一定的效果。