We provide a framework for the analysis of term structures of credit spreads on corporate bonds in the presence of informational asymmetries. While bond investors observe default incidents, we suppose that they have incomplete information on the firm's assets and/or the threshold asset level at...

We propose a model of correlated multi-firm default with incomplete information. While public bond investors observe issuers' assets and defaults, we suppose that they are not informed about the threshold asset level at which a firm is liquidated. Bond investors form instead a prior on these...

The market for derivatives with payoffs contingent on the credit quality of a number of reference entities has grown considerably over recent years. The risk analysis and valuation of such multi-name structures often relies on simulating the performance of the underlying credits. In this paper...

Credit risk refers to the risk of incurring losses due to unexpected changes in the credit quality of a counterparty or issuer. In this paper we give an introduction to the modeling of credit risks and the valuation of credit-risky securities. We consider individual as well as correlated credit...

In this paper I analyse the effects of ignoring level shifts in the data generating process (DGP) on systems cointegration tests that do not accommodate level shifts. I consider two groups of Likelihood Ratio tests based on procedures suggested by Johansen (1988, 1995) and Saikkonen & Lütkepohl...

Credit contagion refers to the propagation of economic distress from one firm or sovereign government to another. In this paper we model credit contagion phenomena and study the fluctuation of aggregate credit losses on large portfolios of financial positions. The joint dynamics of firms' credit...

A systems cointegration rank test is proposed which is applicable for vector autoregressive (VAR) processes with a structural shift at unknown time. The structural shift is modeled as a simple shift in the mean of the process. It is proposed to estimate the break date first on the basis of a...

Two different types of tests for the cointegrating rank of VAR processes with a deterministic shift in the level have been proposed in the literature. The first proposal is based on the LR principle using a specific Gaussian model set-up. In the second proposal the time series are adjusted for...

The properties of a range of maximum eigenvalue and trace tests for the cointegrating rank of a vector autoregressive process are compared. The tests are alilikelihood ratio type tests and operate under different assumptions regarding the deterministic part of the data generation process. The...