This paper analyzes regional differences across Chinese regions, employing an optimum currency area framework. Empirically, we consider the cross-sectional correlation measure of Solnik & Roulet (2000) when examining data on GDP, trade, inflation and regional budget between 1991 and 2001. Our...

This paper introduces a simple continuous measure of credit risk that associates to each firm a risk parameter related to the firm's risk-neutral default intensity. These parameters can be computed from quoted bond prices and allow assignment of credit ratings much finer than those provided by...

This paper applies the Merton (1974) default probability model to the firms in the SET-50 index at the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). It also examines the rela- tionship between a firm's default probability and firm-specific characteristics like size and book-to-market ratio, and whether...

In this paper we describe a simple way of analytically computing entire ìterm structures of default probabilities using information embedded in the corporate bond market data. This market-based approach of estimating the creditworthiness of firms gives probabilities of default at various...

Financial risk management typically deals with low probability events in the tails of asset price distributions. In order to capture the behavior of these tails, one should therefore rely on models that explicitly focus on the tails. Extreme value theory (EVT) based models do exactly that, and...

This paper looks at the asset correlation bias resulting from firms’ assets and liabilities being denominated in different currencies. It focuses on the time-variation in the bias and on the dependency of the bias on currency movements. Both the volatility of the exchange rate and the...

In this paper we compare equity- and credit investors’ opinions on the price formation in the equity market. More exactly, we invert the CreditGrades model in order to back out credit-implied stock prices and stock return volatilities from credit default swap spreads for the firms in the DJIA...

I use Google News TM to study the relation between news volumes and stock market volatilities. More than nine million stock market-related news stories in English and (Mandarin) Chinese are collected and the dynamics of the news volume and the stock market volatility is compared in both the...

This study discusses how to compute and forecast long-term stock return volatilities, typically with a 5-year horizon or longer, using credit derivatives, and how such volatilities can be used in different areas ranging from the valuation of employee stock options and other long-term derivatives...

This paper describes how credit default swaps could be employed to create performance based executive compensation portfolios that reflect the value of a firm’s debt as well as equity; i.e. the total value of all a firm’s assets. So-called Asset Value Unit (AVU) compensation portfolios are...