An empirical study of credit shock transmission in a small open economy

In this paper, we identify and estimate the dynamic effects of foreign (US) and national (Canadian) credit shocks in a small open economy. We use standard credit spreads as proxies to the external finance premium. Our first result suggests that the US and Canadian credit spreads contain substantial forecasting power for several measures of the Canadian real economic activity, especially during the recent financial crisis and its aftermath. Secondly, an adverse US credit shock generates a significant and persistent economic slowdown in Canada: the national external finance premium rises immediately while interest rates, credit aggregates, output and employment indicators decline. Variance decomposition reveals that credit shocks have a sizeable effect on real activity measures, leading indicators and credit spreads. Yet, the unexpected shocks in domestic credit spreads are not able to generate any significant dynamic response of the real activity once we control for the US credit market conditions.     

Credit ratings and bond spreads of the GIIPS

We examine the relationship between credit ratings and bond yield spreads of peripheral countries in the euro area (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) for the period 1995–2014. Since 2012, bond spreads of those countries have come down very fast, whereas credit ratings have hardly changed. Our results suggest that credit rating agencies have become more cautious and have changed their approach to assess credit risk of sovereigns, and that the impact of sovereign credit risk ratings on sovereign bond spreads has changed.     

研究员收益预测差异与公司债券信用利差

机构研究员对上市公司的未来收益进行预测,预测差异常常造成债券价格出现偏差。以国内上市公司发行的债券为例,以研究员对收益预测的差异和债券信用利差进行了检验。结果发现,在卖空限制下,预测差异越大,债券信用利差越低。这种差异更多地代表了投资者的意见分歧,而非未来的风险水平。并且公司债券比企业债券的信用利差对投资者意见分歧更敏感。此外,还证实了银行间债券市场的流动性确实优于交易所债券市场;平均而言,公司债券的信用利差较企业债券的信用利差更低。     

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.     

Emerging market sovereign bond spreads,credit ratings and global financial crisis

This paper investigates the impacts of sovereign credit ratings and global financial conditions on the evolution of EMBI Global (EMBIG) spreads for a panel of 23 developing countries by using daily data for the period between 1998 and 2012. To this end, we employ not only the conventional panel estimation procedures, but also the recent methods tackling with either cross-sectional dependence stemming from common global shocks or a potential endogeneity. Our results suggest that credit ratings along with global financial conditions re the main determinants of EMBIG spreads. The determinants of EMBIG spreads are not invariant to speculative and investment grade episodes and transitions between them. The recent global crisis changed the determinants of EMBIG spreads and led to credit ratings' impact to converge between speculative and investment grade countries.     

信用与经济增长关系实证研究——基于多层次视角的VAR分析

信用与经济增长之间存在复杂的内在联系。文章利用1990-2007年中国经济数据,实证分析了信用规模及结构与经济增长的关系。结果表明:不同层次的信用规模与经济增长之间存在长期均衡关系且为正相关关系;与非金融部门相比,金融部门信用规模的变化对实际GDP增长的正向影响更大;各层次信用规模与经济增长之间只存在单向因果关系,即经济增长对各层次信用规模的变化有显著的正向效应,而各层次信用规模的变化均未显著影响经济增长。     

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。     

Default and liquidity regimes in the bond market during the 2002–2012 period

Using a real‐time random regime shift technique, we identify and discuss two different regimes in the dynamics of credit spreads during 2002–2012: a liquidity regime and a default regime. Both regimes contribute to the patterns observed in credit spreads. The liquidity regime seems to explain the predictive power of credit risk on the 2007–2009 NBER recession, whereas the default regime drives the persistence of credit spreads over the same recession. Our results complement the recent dynamic structural models as well as monetary and credit supply effects models by empirically supporting two important patterns in credit spreads: the persistence and the predictive ability toward economic downturns.     

PIGS or Lambs? The European Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Role of Rating Agencies

This paper asks whether rating agencies played a passive role or were an active driving force during Europe??s sovereign debt crisis. We address this by estimating relationships between sovereign debt ratings and macroeconomic and structural variables. We then use these equations to decompose actual ratings into systematic and arbitrary components that are not explained by previously observed procedures of rating agencies. Finally, we check whether systematic, as well as arbitrary, parts of credit ratings affect credit spreads. We find that both do affect credit spreads, which opens the possibility that arbitrary rating downgrades trigger processes of self-fulfilling prophecies that may drive even relatively healthy countries towards default.     

Optimal Loan Loss Provisions and Welfare

We study the welfare implications of optimal loan loss provisions in a New Keynesian model featuring endogenous default risk and inflationary credit spreads. A unique link between provisions, credit spreads and inflation can be employed to enhance macroeconomic stability. Optimal provisions are most effective when dealing with cost-push financial shocks inherent in volatile spreads and the zero bound problem of monetary policy. Relaxing provisioning requirements following a recessionary financial disturbance consistently achieves the first-best outcome while nullifying the value of monetary policy under commitment. In contrast, deflationary demand shocks warrant an optimal rise in provisions, which inflate prices yet mildly contract output.     

Corporate yield curves as predictors of future economic and financial indicators

The government yield curve is known for its ability to predict the future growth rate of the economy. Later studies showed that credit spreads can assist in predicting macroeconomic behaviour as well. We extend this notion by utilizing corporate yield curves and demonstrating that corporate yield curve spreads can predict future economic growth, the future state of the economy and stock market behaviour. In addition, our sample covers the most recent data available, and it also includes the crash year of 2008 and the recovery period following it. Our results reveal a trade-off effect between the government yield curve, which is a better predictor for long-term forecasting, and the corporate yield curves, which are better predictors for short-term predictions. In addition, we show that both the government and corporate yield curves are more effective in predicting negative rather than positive economic changes.     

Credit card debt and consumption: evidence from household-level data

This research investigates the relationship between credit card debt and consumption using household level data. This is a departure from the previous studies which have used aggregate measures of consumption and general debt such as the Debt Service Ratio or total revolving credit. We use a detailed monthly survey of credit card use to impute credit card debt to respondents from the Consumer Expenditure Survey sample. In contrast to some earlier studies using aggregate data, we find a negative relationship between debt and consumption growth. Our work shows that a $1000 increase in credit card debt results in a decrease in quarterly consumption growth of almost 2%. Investigations are also made into effects of debt within different age categories and into the impact of expected income growth on the debt–consumption relationship.     

Testing for Regime Changes in Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis

This paper examines whether the efficiency market hypothesis for the Greek sovereign debt holds. As in Blanco et al. (2005) we test the theoretical equivalence of credit default swap (CDS) and spreads that dictates a CI relationship between the two. The main innovation of the present analysis is the use of a threshold vector error-correction (TVECM) model, thus allowing thresholds within the sample covering the period 1990 to 2010. Moreover, by employing this methodology we are able to evaluate the degree and dynamics of transaction costs resulting from various events due to external market imperfections but also domestic factors. The main hypothesis we test is to what extent spreads and CDS are indeed integrated that may result in an efficient and integrated segniorage capital market. Our findings support the gradual integration hypothesis. We find that spreads and CDS are cointegrated, though threshold effects are also revealed in terms of events that have impacted on markets.     

Risk Shocks and Credit Spreads

What moves corporate bond credit spreads? This paper employs a novel statistical method to extract the shock that accounts for the maximal amount of the forecast error variance of credit spreads over a given forecast horizon. I find that the extracted shock can explain a substantial portion of unpredictable fluctuations in credit spreads. In particular, impulse response functions indicate that it has a significant adverse effect on economic activity and financial markets, and closely resemble those of the risk shock as reported in Christiano et al. (2014). To investigate this interpretation more formally, I identify the risk shock using the VIX index as a measure of uncertainty proposed by Bloom (2009) and show that surprisingly, the two shocks are intimately related despite using different identification procedures. This finding implies that the risk shock is the main driver of movements in credit spreads, providing empirical evidence on their strong linkages with macroeconomic dynamics, as well as on their roles in presenting valuable information about future economic activity.     

WHAT DO VARS TELL US ABOUT THE IMPACT OF A CREDIT SUPPLY SHOCK?

In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, a variety of structural vector autoregression (VAR) models have been proposed to identify credit supply shocks. Using a Monte Carlo experiment, we show that the performance of these models can vary substantially, with some identification schemes producing particularly misleading results. When applied to U.S. data, the estimates from the best performing VAR models indicate, on average, that credit supply shocks that raise spreads by 10 basis points reduce GDP growth and inflation by 1% after one year. These shocks were important during the Great Recession, accounting for about half the decline in GDP growth.     

中国近年来经济增长与 就业增长间数量关系解释

本文尝试解释为何中国就业变化和经济增长间数量关系并不稳定,两个问题将被处理：（1）就业数据是否有偏误;（2）一些中国特有的影响因素在就业和增长关系间是否有调节作用。本文的研究发现：（1）统计局公布的城镇增加就业数据大致可靠;（2）经济增长对就业有显著拉动作用,也就是说使用另一种表达的奥肯定律得到论证;（3）国有经济部门在就业和增长间起到了调节作用,并且对经济周期不同阶段影响有对称性。     

Growth opportunities and trade credit: evidence from Chinese listed firms

Private firms in China have led the explosive growth of the country’s economy, but with restricted or no access to formal financing. It is puzzling that these firms use relatively less trade credit than their counterparts in developed countries. We argue that firms with more growth opportunities should rely mainly on internal financing owing to high asymmetric information, especially in a financial market environment biased towards state-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as China. To explore growth opportunities, these firms may reduce their level of trade credit in the trade-off they face in deciding where to invest. Using panel data of Chinese non-financial listed firms for the period 2003–2013, we find that the relationship between growth opportunities and trade credit (both accounts receivable and payable) is significantly negative and is more pronounced in private firms than in SOEs. Furthermore, we also find that subsequent to the new receivable pledge policy being introduced, Chinese firms with more growth opportunities have higher accounts receivable, but similar levels of accounts payable.     

Credit market imperfections and persistent unemployment

This paper develops the thesis that credit market frictions may be an important contributor to high unemployment in Europe. When a change in the technological regime necessitates the creation of new firms, this can happen relatively rapidly in the U.S. where credit markets function efficiently. In contrast, in Europe, job creation is constrained by credit market imperfections, so unemployment rises and remains high for an extended period. The data show that there has not been slower growth in the most credit dependent industries in Europe relative to the U.S., but the share of employment in these industries is lower than in the U.S. This suggests that although credit market imperfections are unlikely to have been the major cause of the increase in European unemployment, they may have played some role in limiting European employment growth.     

Valuing Credit Spreads on Quality Australian Dollar Eurobonds in a Multivariate EGARCH Framework

We apply a multivariate EGARCH model implied from the closed‐form valuation model of Longstaff and Schwartz (1995), to explain the time‐varying volatility of credit spreads on high‐quality Australian dollar Eurobonds with different maturities. The results support the proposition that relative credit spreads returns are negatively related to both changes in Australian Government bond yields and changes in the All Ordinaries Index. There is also evidence of a high level of volatility interaction and persistence between Australian dollar Eurobonds, though the volatility transmission mechanism is asymmetric in that negative innovations tend to increase the volatility in other bonds more than positive innovations.     

Effects of pro-growth policies on employment: evidence of regional disparities

The main objective of our research is to study the direct impact of pro-growth economic policies on employment creation globally and regionally, as evidence has countered policy-makers’ expectation that output growth leads automatically to job creation. We innovate by using the ratio of employment to the population above 25 years as dependent variable instead of the customary employment elasticity. We apply generalized methods of moments’ econometrics on dynamic panel data models and find that growth stimulates employment creation on average across 76 countries. The policies promoting private sector credit, investments, openness, services, education spending, tertiary enrollment, and a fixed exchange rate are the ones that create employment. Larger government size undermines job creation, while policies promoting FDI and industrial development fail to stimulate employment. However, we establish that the effect of pro-growth policies on employment varies significantly across regions, with evidence of weaker links between economic policies and employment in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.