Credit risk: the role of market, accounting and macroeconomic information - evidence from US firms and a FAVAR model

This paper examines the role of accounting, market and macroeconomic information in explaining the cross-sectional variation of credit default swap spreads. The study proposes a panel FAVAR methodological approach to combine the additional predictions from a long list of accounting, market and macroeconomic fundamental variables. A comprehensive analysis based on 171 US manufacturing firms and spanning the period 2003-2011, shows that variance decompositions support the dominance of the market environment over the accounting and the macroeconomic environments in providing information to the credit markets.