Interest Rates in Trade Credit Markets

All things equal, interest rates should increase with the borrower's risk. And yet, Klapper, Laeven, and Rajan (2012) cannot find such a positive relation in a broad sample of trade credit contracts. We shed some light on this puzzle by arguing that competition between informed and uninformed suppliers weakens the link between the trade credit cost and the borrower's creditworthiness. Our model implies that trade credit rates are more likely to increase with the borrower's risk if suppliers are less profitable, have high cost of funds, or sell inputs to firms plagued by moral hazard and financial distress.     

Risk Premium Shocks and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates

Quantitative dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models often admit that the zero bound on nominal interest rates does not constrain (optimal) monetary policy. Recent economic events, however, have reinforced the relevance of the zero bound. This paper sheds some light on this disconnect by studying a broad range of shocks within a standard DSGE model. In contrast to earlier studies, we find that risk premium shocks are key to building quantitative models where the zero bound is relevant for monetary policy design. Other commonly included shocks, such as productivity, government spending, and money demand shocks, are unable to push nominal rates close to zero.     

REIT Risk Premium Sensitivity and Interest Rates

This analysis investigates several aspects of the relationship between daily REIT stock risk premiums and various interest rates. Consistent with prior research, the general findings indicate that interest rates do impact REIT returns. This study specifically finds that stock returns are more sensitive to maturity rate spread between short- and long-term treasuries than the credit rate spread between commercial bonds and treasuries. In addition, the analyses document a structural model shift during the nineties that has made REITs more sensitive to credit risk. In additional to change in investor clientele, an analysis of declining REIT credit-worthiness points to a root cause for this shift.     

Nominal Interest Rates and the News

This paper provides new estimates of the impact of monetary policy actions and macroeconomic news on the term structure of nominal interest rates. The key novelty is to parsimoniously capture the impact of news on all interest rates using a simple no‐arbitrage model. The different types of news are analyzed in a common framework by recognizing their heterogeneity, which allows for a systematic comparison of their effects. This approach leads to novel empirical findings. First, monetary policy causes a substantial amount of volatility in both short‐term and long‐term interest rates. Second, macroeconomic data surprises have small and mostly insignificant effects on the long end of the term structure. Third, the term‐structure response to macroeconomic news is consistent with considerable interest‐rate smoothing by the Federal Reserve. Fourth, monetary policy surprises are multidimensional while macroeconomic surprises are one‐dimensional.     

U.S. Real Interest Rates and Default Risk in Emerging Economies

This paper empirically investigates the impact of changes in U.S. real interest rates on sovereign default risk in emerging economies using the method of identification through heteroskedasticity. Policy‐induced increases in U.S. interest rates starkly raise default risk in emerging market economies. However, the overall correlation between U.S. real interest rates and the risk of default is negative, demonstrating that the effects of other variables dominate the anterior relationship.     

Distressed Debt Restructuring in the Presence of Credit Default Swaps

The availability of credit insurance via credit default swaps has been closely associated with the emergence of empty creditors. We empirically investigate this issue by looking at the debt restructurings (distressed exchanges and bankruptcy filings) of rated, nonfinancial U.S. companies over the period January 2007–June 2011. Using different proxies for the existence of insured creditors, we do not find evidence that the access to credit insurance favors bankruptcy over a debt workout. However, we document higher recovery prices following a distressed exchange in firms where empty creditors are more likely to emerge.     

企业风险异质性、贷款利率与信贷违约风险——基于银行信贷微观数据

通过某股份制商业银行2010-2015年贷款数据,讨论不同风险贷款企业、贷款利率与信贷违约之间的关系.结果表明:贷款利率与贷款违约之间呈现U型关系;高风险等级企业与贷款违约之间正相关且显著;无论是高风险等级企业还是低风险等级企业与银行贷款利率之间均呈现负相关且显著,说明贷款利率的抑制现象依然存在.从参数估计值来看,低风险等级企业贷款利率要低于高风险等级企业;高风险企业与贷款利率交叉项与违约之间呈现负相关且显著,说明高风险企业通过贷款利率渠道确实可以降低信贷违约概率.     

The Relation Between SFAS No. 95 Cash Flows From Operations and Credit Risk

This study examines the relevance of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 95 operating cash flow disclosures for assessing a primary component of firm risk, namely credit risk. We find that SFAS No. 95 operating cash flows is an important determinant of credit risk, measured by debt ratings, incremental to other profitability and risk–related information. We also find that operating cash flows have a stronger incremental relation to credit risk for firms with a larger proportion of long–term debt and larger firms with lower operating uncertainty. Interestingly, cash flows appear to have less incremental importance for firms in high tech and regulated industries.     

Interest Rates and the Market for New Light Vehicles

We study the impact of interest rate changes on the demand and supply of new light vehicles in an environment where consumers and manufacturers face their own interest rates. Interest rate changes impact the auto market through both households and manufacturers. For the impact of rate changes on price and output growth, the household channel is quantitatively more important. A 100 basis‐point increase in both interest rates causes annual growth rates of production to fall from 1.0% to ?11.0% and sales to fall from 1.0% to ?2.9% in the short run.     

A Simple Multi-Factor,Time-Dependent-Parameter Model for the Term Structure of Interest Rates

In this paper, we present a simple version of the Duffie and Kan model (1996). Our model can perfectly fit the yield curve and the volatility curve and further provide true closed form solutions to the pure discount bond price and its European contingent claims. Due to the specific factor structure in our model, the calibration exercise is easy to implement. This advantage will improve the computational efficiency in pricing American style claims.     

The Impact on Interest Rates of Unemployment Announcements and Their Revisions

The announced changes in monthly employment reports and in weekly new unemployment claim reports are based on new levels and on revisions to previous levels. We analyze the effect on interest rates of surprises to these two separate components of the changes. We find that for weekly reports the effect on interest rates of the new level is greater than the effect of the revisions. For monthly employment reports, the two components’ effects have similar strength.     

Lower Bound Uncertainty and Long-Term Interest Rates

Nominal interest rates are constrained by an effective lower bound, but the level of the lower bound is uncertain. This paper uses a simple shadow rate term structure model to study how lower bound uncertainty affects long-term interest rates. A decline in lower bound uncertainty, in the sense of a mean-preserving contraction, is associated with a drop in expected short rates. The effect on the variance of short rates, and hence the term premium, is ambiguous. A calibration to Canadian data suggests that a decline in lower bound uncertainty is associated with a modest drop in interest rates.     

Credit and Banking in a DSGE Model of the Euro Area

This paper studies the role of credit supply factors in business cycle fluctuations using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with financial frictions enriched with an imperfectly competitive banking sector. Banks issue collateralized loans to both households and firms, obtain funding via deposits, and accumulate capital out of retained earnings. Loan margins depend on the banks' capital‐to‐assets ratio and on the degree of interest rate stickiness. Balance‐sheet constraints establish a link between the business cycle, which affects bank profits and thus capital, and the supply and cost of loans. The model is estimated with Bayesian techniques using data for the euro area. The analysis delivers the following results. First, the banking sector and, in particular, sticky rates attenuate the effects of monetary policy shocks, while financial intermediation increases the propagation of supply shocks. Second, shocks originating in the banking sector explain the largest share of the contraction of economic activity in 2008, while macroeconomic shocks played a limited role. Third, an unexpected destruction of bank capital may have substantial effects on the economy.     

Systemic Risk,Financial Crisis,and Credit Risk Insurance

Differing from conventional insurance firms whose underwriting business does not contribute to systemic risk, credit risk insurance companies providing credit protections for debt obligations are exposed to systemic risk. We show that credit risk insurers (CRIs) underperformed conventional insurance companies during the 2007–2009 financial crisis, and such underperformance is attributed to the greater systemic risk of CRIs. We also find that the credit spreads of insured bonds increase significantly after their insurers are downgraded or put in the negative watch list. We control for alternative factors affecting bond credit spreads and the result is robust.     

Debt Maturity,Credit Risk,and Information Asymmetry: The Case of Municipal Bonds

Using a system of equations approach, this paper empirically tests the impact of credit quality, asset maturity, and other issuer and issue characteristics on the maturity of municipal bonds. We find that under conditions of lower information asymmetry that prevails in the municipal sector, higher‐rated bonds have longer maturities than low‐rated bonds. This result differs from that observed in the corporate sector. Overall, our results support the asset maturity hypothesis. In addition, our analysis finds that fundamentals matter. Issue features that provide additional protection or convenience to the investor tend to increase debt maturity.     

Why do large shareholders adopt a short‐term versus a long‐term investment horizon in different firms?

I ask why the same large shareholders have different investment horizons. Using data for 1998–2013, I examine four fundamental firm policies for their potential influence on blockholders’ investments with different time horizons. The panel ordinary least squares, difference‐in‐difference (using the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act), logistic, and dynamic generalized method of moments regression analyses reveal that blockholders adopt a short‐term horizon in smaller firms with a less independent board, high leverage, and high dividends while the same blockholders keep their investments longer in firms with a more independent board and low dividends. Under various economic conditions, different firm characteristics gain importance in blockholders’ decision on short‐term versus long‐term investments.     

Credit Risk Spreads in Local and Foreign Currencies

Governments, corporations, and even small firms raise and denominate capital in different currencies. We examine the micro‐level factors that should be considered by a borrower when structuring debt denominated in various currencies. This paper will show how the currency composition of debt affects the cost of debt through the interaction with the risk of company's assets. We look at the currency mismatch in the firm and analyze its credit spread within a Merton's type model with bankruptcy. We show that foreign currency borrowing is cheaper when the exchange rate is positively correlated with the return on the company's assets. The determining factor is not just whether a given company is an exporter or importer, but rather the statistical correlation between the rate of return on the firm's assets and changes in the exchange rate.     

Credit risk drivers: Evaluating the contribution of firm level information and of macroeconomic dynamics

Understanding if credit risk is driven mostly by idiosyncratic firm characteristics or by systematic factors is an important issue for the assessment of financial stability. By exploring the links between credit risk and macroeconomic developments, we observe that in periods of economic growth there may be some tendency towards excessive risk-taking. Using an extensive dataset with detailed information for more than 30 000 firms, we show that default probabilities are influenced by several firm-specific characteristics. When time-effect controls or macroeconomic variables are also taken into account, the results improve substantially. Hence, though the firms’ financial situation has a central role in explaining default probabilities, macroeconomic conditions are also very important when assessing default probabilities over time.     

The Original Maturity of Corporate Bonds: The Influence of Credit Rating,Asset Maturity,Security, and Macroeconomic Conditions

We examine the determinants of the new issue maturity of corporate bonds. As credit rating decreases, new bond issues have longer maturities, but substantial variation in maturity within each rating class remains. We seek to explain the variation of new issue maturity within credit classes. We find that asset maturity, security covenants, and macroeconomic conditions influence the new issue maturity of bonds within rating categories.     

Bond Option Valuation for Non‐Markovian Interest Rate Processes

The standard method for valuing a European option on a bond portfolio is developed by Jamshidian. He shows that under certain circumstances the payoff from a bond option can be expressed as a portfolio of payoffs on discount bond options, allowing the option to be valued as a portfolio of options. A limitation of this approach is that it cannot be applied to non‐Markovian interest rate processes. This paper develops a method for the valuation of a European option on a bond portfolio that can be applied to both Markovian and non‐Markovian interest rate processes.