Pay attention or pay extra : evidence on the compensation of investors for the implicit credit risk of structured products

We investigate the compensation of counterparty exposure in the prices of structured products. Our analysis reveals that product issuers do not compensate retail investors for counterparty exposure before the Lehman default. Post-Lehman, retail prices no longer neglect this risk. We also measure retail investor attention towards issuer credit risk. For a given level of issuer credit risk, counterparty exposure is compensated more when attention is higher. Furthermore, issuers tend to construct products with larger counterparty exposure. Overall, our results shed light on the conditions under which financial engineering generates neglected risk