We consider a system where the asset values of firms are correlated with the default thresholds. We first evaluate the probability of default of a single firm under the correlated assets assumptions. This extends Merton’s probability of default of a single firm under the independent asset...

The impact of a stress scenario of default events on the loss distribution of a credit portfolio can be assessed by determining the loss distribution conditional on these events. While it is conceptually easy to estimate loss distributions conditional on default events by means of Monte Carlo...

Bharath and Shumway (2008) provide evidence that shows that it is the functional form of Merton’s (1974) distance to default (DD) model that makes it useful and important for predicting defaults. In this paper, we investigate whether the default predictability of the Merton DD model would be...

We examine the relation between corporate governance and bankruptcy risk as an underlying force affecting a bond’s yield. The level of corporate governance is captured by the G-index, along with the explicit groups of governance provisions. We estimate bankruptcy risk by Z-score, by...

Globalization has precipitated movement of output and employment between regions. We examine factors related to corporate financial distress across three continents. Using a multidimensional definition of financial distress we test three hypotheses to explain financial distress using historical...

What difference does it make, and for whom, whether the nonperforming debts of emerging market borrowers are restructured? This paper begins by positing a set of counterfactual conditions under which restructuring would not matter, and then shows how several ways in which the actual world of...

This paper revisits the proposal to use options in corporate bankruptcy that was put forward in Bebchuk (1988). According to the proposed procedure, corporate bankruptcy should be implemented through the distribution to participants of appropriately designed options. The paper starts by...

This paper analyzes the effects of the legal rules governing transnational bankruptcies. We compare a regime of territoriality' -- in which assets are adjudicated by the jurisdiction in which they are located at the time of the bankruptcy -- with a regime of universality are adjudicated in a...

Recent financial crises in emerging markets have been followed by temporary but substantial losses in output. This paper explores the possibility that threats of such losses are the dominant incentive for repayment of international debt. In this environment private debtors and creditors have...

This paper supplies an agency-cost and contestable-markets perspective on the financial policies that triggered the Asian financial crisis. The agency-cost analysis hypothesizes that individual-country regulators knew that politically directed loans had made their banks insolvent, but...