Sovereign to Corporate Risk Spillovers

The first Greek bailout on April 11, 2010 triggered a significant reevaluation of sovereign credit risk across Europe. We exploit this event to examine the transmission of sovereign to corporate credit risk. A 10% increase in sovereign credit risk raises corporate credit risk on average by 1.1% after the bailout. The evidence is suggestive of risk spillovers from sovereign to corporate credit risk through a financial and a fiscal channel, as the effects are more pronounced for firms that are bank or government dependent. We find no support for indirect risk transmission through a deterioration of macroeconomic fundamentals.     

违约风险模型对违约定义的敏感性研究

本文根据贷款信用风险四级分类和五级分类定义三种违约,运用商业银行的贷款企业会计数据分析了Logistic违约风险模型对违约定义的敏感性。实证研究表明,在三种违约定义下,违约模型的结构相似,但模型选择的变量和变量的显著水平存在差异,违约模型对违约定义具有敏感性。     

Sovereign Risk Contagion in East Asia: A Mixture of Time-Varying Copulas Approach

This study analyzes sovereign risk contagion between four East Asian economies (China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea) and its structural changes through the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the European Debt Crisis (EDC) by applying the mixture of time-varying copulas to those economies’ credit default swap (CDS) spreads.

This article first finds a strong contagion from the US and PIIGS economies to the East Asian sovereign CDS markets and intraregional contagion within the East Asian markets. Second, the impact of contagion is different according to whether it is measured by the linear (Gaussian) or the upper tail dependence. Third, Japan plays an important role in increasing the linear dependence whereas China and Korea are crucial in terms of the upper tail dependence. Lastly, the GFC has structurally increased the linear dependence but not the upper tail dependence between the East Asian sovereign CDS markets.     

Valuation of Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities with Default Risk Using an Intensity-Based Approach

This paper develops a valuation model for fixed-rate mortgages, mortgage pools, and residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS's) using an intensity-based approach. This model incorporates full prepayment, partial prepayment, and default in valuing a mortgage. Full prepayment is further classified into “refinancing” and “sale of a house” depending on the reason. The time of occurrence of each of these three types of prepayment and default is modeled as the first jump time of a Cox process. Under these conditions, the valuation formula for a mortgage as well as a partial differential equation (PDE) that the mortgage value satisfies is provided. As for implementation of the model, the short-term riskless interest rate and the house price are adopted as state variables. Each intensity process is specified in a manner that allows a jump in intensity depending on the state variables and the borrower's incentive for prepayment or default. Through such specifications, it is shown that our model has characteristics similar to some structural models in previous literature. As for the numerical method for valuation, we propose a simple backward induction technique on a tree instead of the commonly used Monte Carlo method. Additionally, the method for estimating the model is discussed, and the results of numerical simulations are reported.This paper represents the view of the author and does note necessarily the views of the Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co., Ltd. or members of its staff.     

Risk Measures for Hedge Funds: a Cross‐sectional Approach

This paper analyses the risk‐return trade‐off in the hedge fund industry. We compare semi‐deviation, value‐at‐risk (VaR), Expected Shortfall (ES) and Tail Risk (TR) with standard deviation at the individual fund level as well as the portfolio level. Using the Fama and French (1992) methodology and the combined live and defunct hedge fund data from TASS, we find that the left‐tail risk captured by Expected Shortfall (ES) and Tail Risk (TR) explains the cross‐sectional variation in hedge fund returns very well, while the other risk measures provide statistically insignificant or marginally significant results. During the period between January 1995 and December 2004, hedge funds with high ES outperform those with low ES by an annual return difference of 7%. We provide empirical evidence on the theoretical argument by Artzner et al. (1999) that ES is superior to VaR as a downside risk measure. We also find the Cornish‐Fisher (1937) expansion is superior to the nonparametric method in estimating ES and TR.     

Default and Recovery Risk Dependencies in a Simple Credit Risk Model

This paper provides evidence for the relationship between credit quality, recovery rate, and correlation. The paper finds that rating grade, rating shift, and macroeconomic factors provide a highly significant explanation for default risk and recovery risk of US bond issues. The empirical data suggest that default and recovery processes are highly correlated. Therefore, a joint approach is required for estimating time‐varying default probabilities and recovery rates that are conditional on default. This paper develops and applies such a model.     

An Empirical Study of International Spillover of Sovereign Risk to Bank Credit Risk

The severity and complexity of the recent financial crisis has motivated the need for understanding the relationships between sovereign ratings and bank credit ratings. This is the first study to examine the impact of the “international” spillover of sovereign risk to bank credit risk through both a ratings channel and an asset holdings channel. In the first case, the downgrade of sovereign ratings in GIIPS (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain) countries leads to rating downgrades of banks in the peripheral countries. The second channel indicates that larger asset holdings of GIIPS debt increases the credit risk of cross‐border banks, and hence, the probabilities of downgrade.     

Determinants of Sovereign Wealth Fund Cross‐Border Investments

Using a sample of 1,590 purchases of stock by sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in listed firms in 78 target countries between 1985 and 2011, we study the country‐level determinants of SWF cross‐border investment. We find that SWFs from countries with high levels of openness and economic development, but with less developed local capital markets, will make more cross‐country transactions, while target countries with higher levels of investor protection and more developed capital markets will attract more SWF investment. Our findings support the investment facilitation hypothesis, suggesting that SWFs act purely or principally as commercial investors facilitating cross‐border corporate investment.     

The Chinese Approach Toward Cross‐Border Bankruptcy Proceedings: One Progressive Step Ahead

The birth of the law on enterprise bankruptcy of the People's Republic of China in 2006 was highly acclaimed. It was generally regarded as a modernized comprehensive legislative work at home and abroad. The “territorialism” approach adopted therein respecting foreign bankruptcy proceedings, however, has received floods of criticism ever since. It has left a great legal vacuum for the protection of foreign bankrupt debtor's assets in China. Foreign investors, however, may see dawn and have their confidence restored after the recent decision of the Supreme People's Court in the well‐known case of Thumb Environmental Technology Group v Sino‐Environment Technology Group, which was made on 11 June 2014. From this case on, with some limitations, the legitimate powers of foreign bankruptcy administrators might normally be ensured once foreign bankruptcy proceedings are initiated in the place of registration or place of principal business of the foreign debtor, whereby foreign administrators will be able to take effective measures to investigate, protect and dispose of the bankrupt's assets located within the Chinese territory.     

个人住房抵押贷款违约风险影响因素:一个文献综述

文章对个人住房抵押贷款违约风险影响因素的文献进行了一个梳理和回顾,发现影响个人住房抵押贷款违约风险的因素总体上可以分为微观个体特征因素和外部宏观经济因素.个体特征可以区分出哪类借款人具有更高违约风险,外部宏观特征决定了借款人在哪些时间段和条件下具有更高违约风险.在个体特征方面,贷款价值比(LTV)、年龄、居住区域、还款方式、家庭收入、月还款额占家庭收入比例和住房面积等都是影响违约风险的重要因素;从外部宏观层面来看,房价变化、利率水平、季节等都是影响违约风险的重要因素.     

A Value at Risk Approach to Background Risk

This paper studies the effects of an uninsurable background risk (BR) on the demand for insurance (proportional and with deductible). We study both the case of BR uncorrelated with the insurable one and the perfectly correlated one, in a Gaussian world. In order to perform our study, we exploit the new risk measure known as Value at Risk (VaR) and consider insurance contracts which are Mean-VaR efficient. We obtain results which depend on the parameters (moments) of both risks and on the magnitude of loadings charged by the insurance company, instead of depending on the risk attitudes of the insured, such as risk aversion and prudence.We demonstrate that, if loadings are not too high, the demand for insurance increases with positively correlated BR; it decreases with BR negatively correlated if the latter is less risky than the insurable one (in this case it can even go to zero, if loadings are too high); it goes to zero with BR which is negatively correlated and more risky than the insurable one.     

Z-score模型最优分割点的确定方法比较——基于违约风险预测能力的分析

Z-score模型在对企业进行财务困境和违约风险判别方面具有重要的应用价值,最优分割点的确定方法对于提高模型的违约风险判别能力至关重要.本文以医药生物行业上市公司为样本,运用Fisher逐步判别法从15类财务比率中筛选出判别能力较强的7个指标构建了Z-score模型,并尝试采用加权平均法和考虑先验概率及误判成本的ZETAc模型法分别确定最优分割点.研究发现,ZETAc模型法预测企业违约风险的能力明显优于加权平均法.     

News‐Specific Price Discovery in Credit Default Swap Markets

We examine the lead and lag relation between equity and credit default swap (CDS) markets. We find that price discovery in equity markets only leads CDS markets following aggregate positive news and not so following other news. While difficult to reconcile with standard asset pricing theories, asymmetric price adjustment is common in goods markets, arising from intermediary power. We provide an explanation for this asymmetry based on dealers exploiting informational advantages vis‐à‐vis investors with hedging motives. Consistent with this explanation, we find that the patterns we document are related to firm‐level proxies for hedging demand, as well as economy‐wide measures of information asymmetries.     

An Empirical Investigation of CDS Spreads Using a Regime-Switching Default Risk Model

Default risk in equity returns can be measured by structural models of default. In this article we propose a credit warning signal (CWS) based on the Merton Default Risk (MDR) model and a Regime-Switching Default Risk (RSDR) model. The RSDR model is a generalization of the MDR model, comprises regime-switching asset distribution dynamics, and thus produces more realistic default probability estimates in cases of deteriorating credit quality. Alternatively, it reduces to the MDR model. Using a dataset of U.S. credit default swap (CDS) contracts around the 2007-8 crisis we construct rating-based indices to investigate the MDR and RSDR implied probabilities of default in relation to the market-observed CDS spreads. The proposed CWS measure indicates an increase in implied default probabilities several months ahead of notable increases in CDS spreads.     

Extending a Logistic Approach to Risk Modeling through Semiparametric Mixing

The new proposal of the Basel Committee on banking regulation issued in January 2001 allows banks to use internal ratings systems to classify firms. Within this context, the main problem is to find a model that fits the data as well as possible, but one that also provides good prediction and explicative capabilities. In this paper, our aim is to compare two kinds of classification models applied to creditworthiness using weighted classification error as the performance function: the standard logistic model and a mixed logistic model, adopting, respectively, a parametric and a semiparametric approach. The main problem of the former is related to the assumption of an i.i.d. hypothesis, but it is often necessary to consider the possible presence of unobservable heterogeneity that characterizes microeconomic data. To better consider this phenomenon, we defined and applied a random effect logistic model, avoiding parametric assumptions upon the random effect distribution. This leads to a likelihood that is defined as the integral of the kernel density with respect to the mixing density, which has no analytical solution. This problem can be obviated by approximating the integral with a finite sum of kernel densities, each one characterized by a different set of model parameters. This discrete nature helps us in detecting non-overlapping clusters characterized by homogeneous values of insolvency risk, and in classifying firms to one of these clusters by means of estimated posterior probabilities of component membership.     

A Stability Approach to Mean‐Variance Optimization

I jointly treat two critical issues in the application of mean‐variance portfolios, that is, estimation risk and portfolio instability. I find that theory‐based portfolio strategies, which are known to outperform naive diversification () in the absence of transaction costs, heavily underperform it under transaction costs. This is because they are highly unstable over time. I propose a generic method to stabilize any given portfolio strategy while maintaining or improving its efficiency. My empirical analysis confirms that the new method leads to stable and efficient portfolios that offer equal or lower turnover than and larger Sharpe ratio, even under high transaction costs.