We compute joint sovereign default probabilities as coincident systemic risk indicators. Instead of commonly used CDS spreads, we use government bond yield data which provide a longer data history. We show that for the more recent sample period 2008--2015, joint default probabilities based on...

Recent models for credit risk management make use of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). The HMMs are used to forecast quantiles of corporate default rates. Little research has been done on the quality of such forecasts if the underlying HMM is potentially mis-specified. In this paper, we focus on...

We determine the magnitude and nature of systematic default risk using 1971{2009) default data from Moody's. We disentangle systematic risk factors due to business cycle effects, common default dynamics (frailty), and industry-specific dynamics (including contagion). To quantify the contribution...

Various economic theories are available to explain the existence of credit and default cycles. There remains empirical ambiguity, however, as to whether or these cycles coincide. Recent papers_new suggest by their empirical research set-up that they do, or at least that defaults and credit...

We model 1981-2002 annual US default frequencies for a panel of firms in different rating and age classes. The data is decomposed into a systematic and firm-specific risk component, where the systematic component reflects the general economic conditions and default climate. We have to cope with...

We propose procedures for estimating the time-dependent transition matrices for the general class of finite nonhomogeneous continuous-time semi-Markov processes. We prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions for the system of Volterra integral equations defining the transition matrices,...

We study the relation between the credit cycle and macro-economic fundamentals in an intensity-based framework. Using rating transition and default data of U.S. corporates from Standard and Poor’s over the period 1980-2005 we directly estimate the credit cycle from the micro rating data. We...