Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market

We use the information in credit default swaps to obtain direct measures of the size of the default and nondefault components in corporate spreads. We find that the majority of the corporate spread is due to default risk. This result holds for all rating categories and is robust to the definition of the riskless curve. We also find that the nondefault component is time varying and strongly related to measures of bond‐specific illiquidity as well as to macroeconomic measures of bond market liquidity.     

An Empirical Comparison of Credit Spreads between the Bond Market and the Credit Default Swap Market

This paper compares the pricing of credit risk in the bond market and the fast-growing credit default swap (CDS) market. The cointegration test confirms that the theoretical parity relationship between the two credit spreads holds as a long-run equilibrium condition. Nevertheless, substantial deviation from the parity can arise in the short run. The panel data study and the VECM analysis both suggest that the deviation is largely due to the higher responsiveness of CDS premia to changes in credit conditions. Moreover, it exhibits a certain degree of persistence in that only 10% of price discrepancies can be removed within a business day.     

Derivative Pricing with Liquidity Risk: Theory and Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market

We derive an equilibrium asset pricing model incorporating liquidity risk, derivatives, and short‐selling due to hedging of nontraded risk. We show that illiquid assets can have lower expected returns if the short‐sellers have more wealth, lower risk aversion, or shorter horizon. The pricing of liquidity risk is different for derivatives than for positive‐net‐supply assets, and depends on investors' net nontraded risk exposure. We estimate this model for the credit default swap market. We find strong evidence for an expected liquidity premium earned by the credit protection seller. The effect of liquidity risk is significant but economically small.     

基于CDS策略的专利融资信用风险违约概率研究

专利融资是一种备受国家创新战略关注的技术知识产权资本化模式,信用违约风险则是该模式运作过程必须面对的关键问题之一。基于信用违约互换(CDS)工具与策略,主要研究专利融资信用风险期望违约概率与实际违约概率的相关性,并分析其参数敏感性。研究结果表明,实际概率通常会低于期望概率且两者呈现正相关关系,同时,风险溢价与期望收益也呈现正相关性,即系统可以通过标准化分析工具调控实际概率,且能在一定程度上适当容忍稍大的风险,从而提高融资效率。     

Determinants of Swap Spreads in a Developing Financial Market: Evidence from Finland

This paper presents empirical evidence on the determinants of swap spreads in Finland using four years of data. Spreads exhibit a significant negative relationship with the amount of fixed rate deposits with banks, which reflects the importance of banks in the Finnish capital markets. Spreads are positively linked to business cycle and market risk factors such as the slope of the yield curve and the volatility of interest rates. The influence of hedging costs has become increasingly important over time, especially in longer dated swaps. A relationship is also observed between swap spreads and the external value of the currency.     

The Credit Default Swap market contagion during recent crises: international evidence

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We test the hypothesis that underwriters set higher gross spreads and deeper offer price discounts in seasoned equity offers of firms exhibiting weak...     

Nonlinearity in investment grade Credit Default Swap (CDS) Indices of US and Europe: Evidence from BDS and close-returns tests

This paper is aimed at testing for nonlinearity and chaos in Investment Grade CDS indices of US and Europe. For this exercise, the author has chosen the two most liquid indices, namely CDX.NA.IG (US) and iTraxx.Europe (Europe). BDS test (Brock, Dechert, & Scheinkman, 1987) is employed to test for prevalence of nonlinearity in the US and European datasets. The author then subjects both the US and European datasets to the close-returns test (Gilmore, 1993, 1996, 2001) to examine whether the close-returns plots pertaining to these datasets exhibit any chaotic patterns. The CDS datasets were prepared differently for BDS and close-returns test. Since the BDS test cannot differentiate between linear and non-linear dependency, a best-fitting AR model was fitted to the transformed CDS datasets to remove linear-dependency in the data. The BDS test was then applied to the stationary, linearly-independent AR residuals pertaining to transformed US and European datasets. BDS test outcomes revealed rejection of null hypothesis (i.i.d.) with regard to US and European investment-grade CDS indices. The close-returns test outcomes revealed prevalence of an underlying structure that is neither random nor chaotic in nature. In short, the study's findings reveal prevalence of non-chaotic nonlinearity in the US and European CDS indices. These findings not only augment existing literature on nonlinearity of different asset classes, but also reflect the need for researchers and practitioners to accommodate and appropriately account for nonlinearity while modeling CDS indices spread movements.     

美国信用违约互换市场动荡的机理与启示

本文首先阐述信用违约互换运作机理、功能和风险,分析了美国信用违约互换市场动荡的原因;指出信用违约互换与次级抵押贷款证券化的广泛挂购、合成以及投机与监管空白是造成市场动荡的重要原因;最后,在展望未来信用违约互换市场发展动向的基础上提出了中国发展信用违约互换市场的若干建议.     

Default Predictors in Retail Credit Scoring: Evidence from Czech Banking Data

Credit to the private sector has risen rapidly in European emerging markets, but its risk evaluation has been largely neglected. Using retail-loan banking data from the Czech Republic, we construct two credit risk models based on logistic regression and classification and regression trees. Both methods are comparably efficient and detect similar financial and socioeconomic variables as the key determinants of default behavior. We also construct a model without the most important financial variable (amount of resources), which performs very well. This way, we confirm significance of sociodemographic variables and link our results with specific issues characteristic to new EU members.     

The Effect of Mortgage Price and Default Risk on Mortgage Spreads

Variations over time in mortgage yield spreads should reflect changes in the underlying prepayment option value; moreover, the relationship between mortgage yield spreads and interest rate dynamics should weaken as the value of the borrowers prepayment option declines. We verify this hypothesis through an empirical analysis of residential mortgage yield spread behavior, and we also present evidence that the strength of the relationship between mortgage spreads and interest rate dynamics weakens (strengthens) as the level of default risk increases (decreases). This result is consistent with the competing risks effect between a borrowers option to prepay or default. Our results demonstrate the importance of accounting for mortgage price discount to par as well as default risk when developing time series of mortgage yields.     

Trade Credit and Industry Dynamics: Evidence from Trucking Firms

Long payment terms are a strong impediment to the entry and survival of liquidity‐constrained firms. To test this idea and its implications, I consider the effect of a reform restricting the trade credit supply of French trucking firms. In a difference‐in‐differences setting, I find that trucking firms' corporate default probability decreases by 25% following the restriction. The effect is persistent, concentrated among liquidity‐constrained firms, and not offset by a decrease in profits. The restriction also triggers an increase in the entry of small trucking firms.     

Information Asymmetry and Organizational Structure: Evidence from REITs

We test for the differences in information asymmetry across two organizational forms (external and internal) in the REIT industry. We find significant differences with external REITs being significantly more transparent relative to internal REITs, and these differences are reflected in the loan contract terms and loan syndicate structure of loans made to these two types of REITs. We find that the relatively more transparent externally advised REITs are offered more favourable loan contracts in terms of lower loan rates and lower likelihood of collateral requirement. Further, loans to external REITs have syndicates that are larger in size and the lead lender retains a smaller portion of the loan, reflecting lower information asymmetry.     

Momentum Profitability and Market Trend: Evidence from REITs

This study investigates Real Estate Investment Trusts’ momentum returns in different market states, and explains the momentum phenomenon with a risk-based dividend growth theory of Johnson (Journal of Finance 57:585–608, 2002). Our results show that momentum returns of REITs are higher during up markets. This study finds that winners’ dividend/price ratios are higher than those of losers, and momentum returns are positively correlated with the difference between winners’ and losers’ dividend/price ratios. We also find that momentum returns are higher after the legislation change of REITs in 1992, and that dividend/price ratios of REITs are also higher after 1992, suggesting that a persistent shock to REIT’s dividend/price ratios in 1992 partly explains REITs’ higher momentum returns after 1992. In sum, results of this study suggest that momentum returns of REITs can be jointly explained by a time-varying factor (market state) and a cross-sectional variance in dividend yields.

影响信用风险缓释工具价格的模型外生因素研究——基于信用利差的实证分析

本文研究了影响信用风险缓释工具价格的模型外生因素,并基于信用利差进行了实证检验。实证结果表明:标的主体财务杠杆率的变动、公司股权的波动率、标的债券的久期,以及标的主体的总资产规模均对债券的信用利差有显著影响,进而直接影响信用风险缓释工具价格。一个重要发现是,与经典的信用风险结构化模型的解释相左,中国市场上的债券久期与其信用利差水平存在显著的负相关关系。我们认为,合理解释是,此现象与中国债券市场的发行审批机制有关,在中国市场,信用评级高、还债能力强的公司更有可能通过长期债券的发行审批。     

The Effect of Legal Environment and Regulatory Structure on Performance: Cross-Country Evidence from REITs

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - We study the relationship between international REIT regulatory structures and real estate returns and find that the legal requirements that REITs...     

Institutional Investment and the Turn-of-the-Month Effect: Evidence from REITs

Many studies have hypothesized that the turn-of-the-month effect is caused by institutional investment. However, there is little evidence to support this hypothesis. This study provides an empirical test that measures the impact of the level of institutional investment on the turn-of-the-month effect using a sample of REITs over the period 1980 to 2004. We find that a significant change in the turn-of-the-month effect occurred following the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993 which relaxed the requirements on the level of institutional investment in REITs. The evidence suggests that the dramatic rise in institutional holdings can account for a good part of this change. However, the impact of institutional investment may not be as large as some researchers have suspected. There is no evidence to suggest that institutional investment impacts returns on the day when the turn-of-the-month effect is most pronounced, suggesting that this calendar anomaly is not caused exclusively by institutional investors in the market.

信用评级中的违约率、违约概率研究

信用评级是对个人、经济体与金融工具履行各种经济承诺的能力及可信任程度的综合评价，本文通过对KMV评级模型的研究，指出在信用评级中的关键指标——“违约率和违约概率”在评级中的重要意义。     

信贷与资产价格关系研究——来自中国房地产市场的证据

货币政策与资产价格之间的关系一直以来都是学术界研究的重点,但从房地产信贷视角分析房地产价格的文献却相对较少。本文基于多元MGARCH—BEKK模型和GRACH均值方程模型分析了房地产信贷、货币供应量与房地产价格的波动相关性以及它们的各种波动对房地产价格的影响。研究发现,房地产信贷增长的波动能影响房地产价格的增长,而货币供应量的波动,对房地产价格增长影响不显著。同时实证分析显示在对房价的调控中,房地产信贷的调控是抑制房价波动的一个工具选项。以银行信贷为主的货币供应量已经不能全面反映社会的流动性状况。与货币供应量相比,社会融资总量指标与实体经济指标的联系更加紧密。     

Adverse Information and Dealer Spreads: Evidence from Dutch Auction Repurchases

The Dutch auction repurchase has become an increasingly popular alternative to open market repurchases and self-tender offers for the distribution of earnings to shareholders. In a Dutch auction, the repurchase price is not determined by a managerial decision, but by shareholders. The extent to which a Dutch auction signals private information is tested by examining stock returns and bid-ask spreads. Stock prices increase and bid-ask spreads widen during the announcement of a Dutch auction; prices decrease and spreads narrow at expiration. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the final repurchase price, Dutch auctions initially increase the risk to which security dealers are exposed. As information asymmetry among managers, investors, and dealers is reduced at expiration, security dealers no longer need to protect themselves from information trades.