A measure of risk premium is derived from the comparison of spot and option prices across the US equity and eurodollar markets. Risk premia in both markets co-move with volatility risk. Option prices, however, seem to underreact to changes in return volatility forecasts.

We identify three business models using balance sheet characteristics of 222 international banks and a data-driven procedure. We find that institutions engaging mainly in commercial banking activities have lower costs and more stable profits than those more heavily involved in capital market...

We use tools of extreme value theory to extract information about rare events from market prices. We find that such information contributes materially to measures of banks' systemic importance. These measures exhibit strong and intuitive relationships with simple characteristics of banks'...

The three major rating agencies are reassessing banks' credit risk in the light of the recent crisis. So far, this has resulted in material downgrades, especially of European and US institutions, and increased agreement about banks' overall level of creditworthiness and their greater dependence...

This article compares the linkages between credit fundamentals, ratings and value-at-risk measures for CDO tranches with those for corporate bond exposures. A sensitivity analysis incorporating market information and rating migrations data reveals that the behaviour of CDO tranche ratings can...

Over the past decade, many emerging markets have increased their dependence on credit from foreign banks. However, the ongoing financial crisis may prompt banks to reassess their exposures to these economies. Panel regression analysis of data since the early 1990s indicates that a deterioration...

A model-based assessment of credit risk is subject to both specification and calibration errors. Focusing on a well known credit risk model, we propose a methodology for quantifying the relative importance of alternative sources of such errors and apply this methodology to a large data set. We...

Structural credit risk models account for the average level of default rates within rating categories only when calibrated on a firm by firm basis. Nevertheless, firm-specific information matters little when one is interested in forecasting the path of default rates over time. This is because...

The structure of the international banking market has evolved in important ways since the introduction of the euro in 1999. In comparison to legacy currencies, the use of the euro in cross-border banking transactions grew on aggregate, and the bilateral linkages within the euro area became more...

Activity in the international banking market has grown in recent years, both in absolute terms and relative to aggregate measures of economic activity and liquidity. By establishing a global outreach, several international banking centres have become key players in this market. This feature...