This doctoral thesis develops regime-switching models of the term structure of interest rates. A general framework is proposed to model the joint dynamics of yield curves associated with different debtors (Chapter 2). This framework is exploited to analyse the fluctuations of ten euro-area...

When historical cost is used, the incomes are smoothed in a way that delays the recognition of the financial institutions lessening solvency, especially in the case of fixed rate loans when market rates are decreasing. We study the case of Credit Lyonnais which had the opportunity to transfer...

The main task of this paper is to confront two classical measures of default risk of the issuer, the rating and the spread. The first is attributed by agencies specialized in this activity (Standard and Poor's or Moody's) while the second results directly from the market price of the bond. This...

Asset allocation contribution to ex-post performance is of primary importance. Nobody denies its role, yet the subject of allocating assets remains controversial. To some contenders, the added value stems only from strategic asset allocation which aims at providing the long-term average exposure...

Le recours au coût historique et à des techniques d'allègement des bilans comme la titrisation permettent aux banques de disposer d'une marge de manoeuvre en matière comptable. Le développement des marchés financiers et l'orientation actuelle de l'IASC et du FASB en faveur de la juste...

When rates of return on bonds are computed over extremely short holding periods, the ex post cross-sectional relationship between realized return and risk is linear. It is therefore possible, at any time, to extrapolate the cross-sectional relationship to a zero risk level, and thus to determine...

This paper examines how credit derivatives have changed the construction of an efficient portfolio. Credit derivatives provide a way of gaining exposure to credit risk alone, to the exclusion of interest rate risk. They also permit a relatively easy use of leverage. We examine two types of...

Dependence is an important issue in credit risk portfolio modeling and pricing. We discuss a straightforward common factor model of credit risk dependence, which is motivated by intensity models such as Duffie and Singleton (1998), among others. In the empirical analysis, we study dependence...

Because IPO mechanisms determine both the initial trading price and the allocation of newly-listed firms' shares, they have financial and strategic consequences for shareholders. For that reason, it is of interest to analyse the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different procedures...

For well over a decade many observers had warned that the European Union was ill-prepared in case of a financial storm because its market integration far outpaced its policy integration. This situation was well known to policy-makers but it was hoped that financial crises would wait until policy...