Network structures and idiosyncratic contagion in the European sovereign credit default swap market

This study combines conditional Granger causality and network analysis to examine the interconnectedness in the European sovereign credit default swap (CDS) market. We determine that the network is unstable in the short term and stable in the long term. Further, we visualize dynamic networks and confirm financial contagion in the 2012 European debt crisis. The sources of risk spillovers and the manner in which spillovers are transferred among countries are identified accordingly. Further, we conclude that interconnectedness can be a pricing factor for determining the sovereign CDS return. The results of the network analysis indicate that the European sovereign CDS market is a complex network system and can serve as a valuable reference for investors and policymakers.     

Systemic sovereign credit risk: Lessons from the U.S. and Europe

We study the nature of systemic sovereign credit risk using CDS spreads for the U.S. Treasury, individual U.S. states, and major Eurozone countries. Using a multifactor affine framework that allows for both systemic and sovereign-specific credit shocks, we find that there is much less systemic risk among U.S. sovereigns than among Eurozone sovereigns. We find that both U.S. and Eurozone systemic sovereign risk are strongly related to financial market variables. These results provide strong support for the view that systemic sovereign risk has its roots in financial markets rather than in macroeconomic fundamentals.     

The anatomy of sovereign risk contagion

The channels for the cross-border propagation of sovereign risk in the international sovereign debt market are analysed. Identifying sovereign credit events as extraordinary jumps in CDS spreads, we distinguish between the immediate effects of such events and their longer term spillover effects. To analyse “fast and furious” contagion, we use daily CDS data to conduct event studies around a total of 89 identified credit events in a global country sample. To analyse “slow-burn” spillover effects, we apply a multifactor risk model, distinguishing between global and regional risk factors. We find that “fast and furious” contagion has been primarily a regional phenomenon, whilst “slow-burn” spillover effects can often be global in scope, especially those of the recent European debt crisis. The global risk factors are found to be driven by investor risk appetites and debt levels, whilst the regional factors depend on economic fundamentals of countries within a region.     

The impact and the contagion effect of natural disasters on sovereign credit risk. An empirical investigation

This paper investigates the relationship between natural disasters and the reaction of sovereign CDS spread in Europe. By applying an event study methodology during the period January 2007–December 2021 on an original database in which we identify 92 natural disasters in 17 European countries, we assess the reaction of the sovereign CDS market to a natural disaster. We find a heterogeneous response of the European sovereign risk to a natural disaster, as the response of the sovereign CDS market differs from region to region. The advent of a natural disaster can increase inequality between the regions due to the higher cost of credit for sovereigns and the reduced scope for manoeuvring public finances. Also, the results of the contagion effect confirm the hypothesis of a cross-border propagation effect, as natural disaster, in general, is not local event but spreads to other countries.     

Transmission of the financial and sovereign debt crises to the EMU: Stock prices,CDS spreads and exchange rates

This paper tests for the transmission of the 2007–2010 financial and sovereign debt crises to fifteen EMU countries. We use daily data from 2003 to 2010 on country financial and non-financial stock market indexes to analyze the stock market returns for three country groups within EMU: North, South and Small. The following results hold for both the North and South European countries, while the smallest countries seem to be relatively isolated from international events. First, we find strong evidence of crisis transmission to European non-financials from US non-financials, but not for financials. Second, in order to test how the sovereign debt crisis affects stock market developments we split the crisis in pre- and post-Lehman sub periods. Results show that financials become significantly more dependent on changes in the difference between the Greek and German CDS spreads after Lehman’s collapse, compared to the pre-Lehman sub period. However, this increase is much smaller for non-financials. Third, before the crisis euro appreciations coincide with European stock market decreases, whereas this relationship reverses during the crisis. Finally, this reversal seems to be triggered by Lehman’s collapse.     

A comprehensive approach to measuring the relation between systemic risk exposure and sovereign debt

Using an integrated model to control for simultaneity, as well as new risk measurement techniques such as Adapted Exposure CoVaR and Marginal Expected Shortfall (MES), we show that the aggregate systemic risk exposure of financial institutions is positively related to sovereign debt yields in European countries in an episodic manner, varying positively with the intensity of the financial crisis facing a particular nation. We find evidence of a simultaneous relation between systemic risk exposure and sovereign debt yields. This suggests that models of sovereign debt yields should also include the systemic risk of a country's financial system in order to avoid potentially important mis-specification errors. We find evidence that systemic risk of a country's financial institutions and the risk of sovereign governments are inter-related and shocks to these domestic linkages are stronger and longer lasting than international risk spillovers. Thus, the channel in which domestic sovereign debt yields can be affected by another nation's sovereign debt is mostly an indirect one in that shocks to a foreign country's government finances are transmitted to that country's financial system which, in turn, can spill over to the domestic financial system and, ultimately, have a destabilizing effect on the domestic sovereign debt market.     

Sovereign risk spillovers: A network approach

Understanding the global financial network for sovereign debt, particularly with a focus on interaction and spillover effects of sovereign risk, has become important for policy makers as they look to protect the stability of their economies. Using high dimensional Vector Autoregression techniques and network simulation on Sovereign Credit Default Swaps (CDS)’ data of 57 countries, we identify that the global sovereign CDS network is fully integrated as there is virtually no country without any connection to at least one specific node in the system. However, each country has a unique attribute in the network, as a risk exporter or importer and/or risk transmitter. Among developed countries, the US (unsurprisingly) holds the dominant position as a risk exporter while Germany is identified as a connecting country that transmits shocks. The most connected countries in the sovereign CDS network belong to the new European Union members. We examine possible drivers of the network relationships observed, in order to better understand the risk transmission process, and find that connections in the sovereign risk network are stronger within regional groups and countries with the same level of economic development. Central and Eastern Europe and Middle East and Africa have more interactive networks than Northern Western Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. We also identify that financial volatility and economic policy uncertainty increase the interactions in market-based default risk assessment.     

Credit spread interdependencies of European states and banks during the financial crisis

We investigate the interdependence of the default risk of several Eurozone countries (France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain) and their domestic banks during the period between June 2007 and May 2010, using daily credit default swaps (CDS). Bank bailout programs changed the composition of both banks’ and sovereign balance sheets and, moreover, affected the linkage between the default risk of governments and their local banks. Our main findings suggest that in the period before bank bailouts the contagion disperses from bank credit spreads into the sovereign CDS market. After bailouts, a financial sector shock affects sovereign CDS spreads more strongly in the short run. However, the impact becomes insignificant in the long term. Furthermore, government CDS spreads become an important determinant of banks’ CDS series. The interdependence of government and bank credit risk is heterogeneous across countries, but homogeneous within the same country.     

主权债务风险跨国溢出研究——来自频域的新证据

本文从国家间主权债务风险溢出的持续期角度出发,采用基于广义方差分解谱表示的BK溢出指数方法,首次从频域视角对短期和长期下的主权债务风险跨国溢出效应进行研究。研究发现:第一,短期和长期下的主权债务风险跨国溢出效应均较为显著,并且时域下的总溢出主要由短期的风险溢出主导。第二,14个国家的短期和长期风险输出水平呈线性关系,但对于风险输入,不同类型国家出现分化并形成两个聚类,新兴市场国家的短期风险输入水平远高于长期,其具有较强的“短期脆弱性”。第三,风险输出国的自身风险越大,对他国的长期溢出水平越高,风险输入国的自身风险越大,接收他国的短期溢出水平越高,并且两两国家间的进出口规模、金融市场一体化水平和经济周期协同性与其长期风险溢出水平呈正相关关系,而与其短期风险溢出水平的关系并不显著。第四,短期和长期的主权债务风险溢出网络都呈现明显的区域聚集特征,并且各国在短期溢出网络中主要与同区域以及经济金融环境相似的国家连接,在长期溢出网络中则通过经贸关系将连接范围扩大至不同区域甚至经济金融环境差异较大的国家。     

主权债务风险跨国溢出研究——来自频域的新证据

本文从国家间主权债务风险溢出的持续期角度出发,采用基于广义方差分解谱表示的BK溢出指数方法,首次从频域视角对短期和长期下的主权债务风险跨国溢出效应进行研究。研究发现:第一,短期和长期下的主权债务风险跨国溢出效应均较为显著,并且时域下的总溢出主要由短期的风险溢出主导。第二,14个国家的短期和长期风险输出水平呈线性关系,但对于风险输入,不同类型国家出现分化并形成两个聚类,新兴市场国家的短期风险输入水平远高于长期,其具有较强的“短期脆弱性”。第三,风险输出国的自身风险越大,对他国的长期溢出水平越高,风险输入国的自身风险越大,接收他国的短期溢出水平越高,并且两两国家间的进出口规模、金融市场一体化水平和经济周期协同性与其长期风险溢出水平呈正相关关系,而与其短期风险溢出水平的关系并不显著。第四,短期和长期的主权债务风险溢出网络都呈现明显的区域聚集特征,并且各国在短期溢出网络中主要与同区域以及经济金融环境相似的国家连接,在长期溢出网络中则通过经贸关系将连接范围扩大至不同区域甚至经济金融环境差异较大的国家。     

Implied liquidity risk premium in the term structure of sovereign credit default swap and bond spreads

In this study, we focus on the dynamic properties of the risk-neutral liquidity risk premium specific to the sovereign credit default swap (CDS) and bond markets. We show that liquidity risk has a non-trivial role and participates directly to the variation over time of the term structure of sovereign CDS and bond spreads for both the pre- and crisis periods. Secondly, our results indicate that the time-varying bond and CDS liquidity risk premium move in opposite directions which imply that when bond liquidity risk is high, CDS liquidity risk is low (and vice versa), which may in turn be consistent with the substitution effect between CDS and bond markets. Finally, our Granger causality analysis reveals that, although the magnitude of bond and CDS liquidity risk is substantially different, there is a strong liquidity flow between the CDS and the bond markets, however, no market seems to consistently lead the other.     

The impact of distressed economies on the EU sovereign market

Financially distressed economies inside the European Union (EU) are being blamed for producing a general increase in borrowing costs. This article analyzes the channels of default risk transmission within the EU countries using the information content in the sovereign Credit Default Swap (CDS) market. We proceed in two directions. First, we test the existence of cross-border volatility effects between the central and the peripheral EU countries. Second, we explore the effect of distressed economies on the default and risk premium constituents of sovereign default swaps. We show a significant volatility spillover from distressed to central European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) economies. This causality pattern leads to a significant impact on the default swap risk premia. On average, the risk premium accounts for approximately 42% of central EMU spreads and 56% of the spreads for those countries outside of the EMU. The peripheral risk also affects the default component of central economies, although its impact is lower.     

The dynamics of sovereign yields over swap rates in the Eurozone market

We explore the dynamics of the adjusted swap spread (calculated as the difference between the swap rate and sovereign yields over the credit default swap premium) in the Eurozone market by studying three markets simultaneously: 1) sovereign bonds, 2) credit default swaps (CDS), and 3) swap rates. We find a strong relationship between the markets. Specifically, based on the no-arbitrage argument, we show that the difference between the Euribor and Repo rates is a key driver of the adjusted swap spread. However, illiquidity premiums and systemic risk also play an essential role in times of economic stress and for less creditworthy countries. The findings also shed light on the recent negative swap spreads puzzle in the United States.     

Spillovers among sovereign CDS,stock and commodity markets: A correlation network perspective

In the wake of the globalization of financial markets, studying spillovers among different asset markets, especially spillovers that include sovereign CDS markets, is of vital importance. This paper attempts to build a spillover network to investigate the complex interactions within the system of sovereign CDS, stock and commodity markets by adopting the spillover index based on forecast error variance (FEV) decomposition. The results reveal that emerging countries have larger average spillovers than developed countries with regard to sovereign CDS-to-stock returns spillovers, while the developed countries contribute more average spillovers than the emerging countries in the opposite direction. Moreover, the sovereign CDS market and the commodity market still demonstrate a relatively important role during certain periods although stock markets always occupy the dominant position during every phase. Our findings provide new insights into spillovers among the major global asset markets using a network perspective, which is valuable for regulation of financial markets, asset allocation and portfolio risk management.     

Fear or fundamentals? Heterogeneous beliefs in the European sovereign CDS market

This paper proposes a model for credit default swap (CDS) spreads under heterogeneous expectations to explain the escalation in sovereign European CDS spreads and the widening variations across European sovereigns following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In our model, investors believe that sovereign CDS spreads are determined by country-specific fundamentals and momentum. By estimating the model we find evidence that, while some of the recent movements in sovereign CDS spreads can be explained by deteriorating fundamentals for core European Union (EU) countries, momentum has also played a destabilizing role since the GFC in all sovereign credit markets studied.     

Conditional sovereign CDS in market basket risk scenario: A dynamic vine-copula analysis

This study examines the sensitivity of sovereign CDS markets in G7 and BRICS, which is conditional on a joint market basket risk scenario consisting of crude oil, gold, stock indices, exchange rates, freight indices, and copper prices. By compare the conditional and unconditional sovereign CDS returns using dynamic Vine-Copula model, we find that: 1) The conditional sovereign CDS returns will be less than (greater than) the unconditional ones, when scenario settings is at upper (lower) quantile level. Extreme scenario risk level settings (e.g., 1% or 99%) do not always make a significant difference between conditional and unconditional sovereign CDS. 2) Major black swan evens have significant impact on the difference between the conditional and unconditional sovereign CDS, but such an impact is short-lived especially in G7 countries. 3) Taking into account of the covariate effects, the conditional risk scenarios of sovereign CDS are heterogeneous across countries, down- and up-ward tail as well risk factors associated with the market basket.     

News sentiment and sovereign credit risk

We explore the impact of media content on sovereign credit risk. Our measure of media tone is extracted from the Thomson Reuters News Analytics database. As a proxy for sovereign credit risk we consider credit default swap (CDS) spreads, which are decomposed into their risk premium and default risk components. We find that media tone explains and predicts CDS returns and is a mixture of noise and information. Its effect on risk premium induces a temporary change in investors’ appetite for credit risk exposure, whereas its impact on the default component leads to reassessments of the fundamentals of sovereign economies.     

Disentangling contagion among sovereign CDS spreads during the European debt crisis

During the last crisis, developed economies' sovereign credit default swap (hereafter CDS) premia have gained in importance as a tool for approximating credit risk. In this paper, we fit a dynamic factor model to decompose the sovereign CDS spreads of ten OECD economies into three components: a common factor, a second factor driven by European peripheral countries and an idiosyncratic component. We use this decomposition to propose a novel methodology based on the real-time estimates of the model to characterize contagion among the ten series. Our procedure allows the country that triggers contagion in each period, which can be any peripheral economy, to be disentangled. According to our findings, since the onset of the sovereign debt crisis, contagion has played a non-negligible role in the European peripheral countries, which confirms the existence of significant financial linkages between these economies.     

Sovereign CDS Spreads,Volatility, and Liquidity: Evidence from 2010 German Short Sale Ban

The paper examines global impact of 2010 German short sale ban on sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads, volatility, and liquidity across 54 countries. We find that CDS spreads continue rising after the ban in the debt crisis region, which suggests that the short selling ban is incapable of suppressing soaring borrowing costs in these countries. However, we find that the ban helps stabilize the CDS market by reducing CDS volatility. The reduction in CDS volatility is greater in the eurozone than that in the non‐eurozone. Furthermore, we find that the CDS market liquidity has been impaired during the ban for the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) countries. In contrast, there are no dramatic changes in the market liquidity for non‐PIIGS eurozone and non‐eurozone samples. The findings suggest that the short sale ban is ineffective to reduce sovereign borrowing costs in the debt crisis region if the underlying economy has not been significantly improved.     

On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk—Portfolio investments and market forces

A sovereign debt crisis can have significant knock-on effects in the financial markets and put financial stability at risk. This paper focuses on the transmission of sovereign risk to insurance companies as some of the largest institutional investors in the sovereign bond market. We use a firm level panel dataset that covers large insurance companies, banks and non-financial firms from nine countries over the time period from 1 January 2008–1 May 2013. We find significant and robust transmission effects from sovereign risk to domestic insurers. The impact on insurers is not significantly different from that on banks but larger than for non-financial firms. We find that systemically important insurers are more closely linked to the domestic sovereign. Based on European data, we show that risks in sovereign bond portfolios are an important driver of insurer risk, which is not reflected in current insurance regulation (incl. Solvency II in Europe).