Credit risk is an important issue in many nance areas, such as the determinationof cost of capital, the valuation of corporate bonds and pricing of credit derivatives.Credit risk has also been a cause and consequence of the current nancial crisis.Thus, methods for measuring credit risk, default...

Financial institutions are faced with the challenge to forecast future credit portfolio losses.It is common practice to focus on portfolio models consisting of a limited set of parameters,such as the probability of default, asset correlation, loss given default or exposure at default.A simple...

The following article develops a simultaneous multi-factor model for defaults and recoveries. Applying this model, risk parameters can be forecast using systematic and idiosyncratic risk fac-tors and their implied correlations. The theoretical framework is accompanied by an empirical analysis in...

A major topic in retail lending is the measurement of the inherent portfolio credit risk. Two importantparameters are default probabilities (PDs) and correlations. Both are considered in theNew Basel Accord. Due to limited empirical evidence on their magnitude, in particular for retailcredit...

We model multiyear loss distributions based on credit scores and macroeconomic risk drivers. In a two-step approach, we first model future default probabilities as functions of these risk factors and, second, model processes for the risk factors themselves. As an essential extension to one-year...

The present paper shows how the parameters of three popular portfolio credit risk models can be empiricallyestimated by banks using a Maximum Likelihood framework. We apply the method to a database of Germanfirms provided by Deutsche Bundesbank and analyze the inclusion of macroeconomic and...

In addition to “classical” approaches, such as the Gaussian CreditMetrics or Basel II model, recentlythe use of other copulas has been proposed in the area of credit risk for modeling loss distributions,particularly T copulas which lead to fatter tails ceteris paribus. As an amendment to...

The New Basel Capital Accord will allow the determination of banks’ regulatory capital requirementsdue to probabilities of default which are estimated and forecasted from internal ratings.Broadly, two rating philosophies are distinguished: Through the Cycle versus Point inTime Ratings. We...

Among the most crucial input parameters for credit portfolio risk models are the co-movements ofdefault risks. Due to limited empirical evidence about the magnitude of correlations the New BaselCapital Accord sets standard requirements for calculating regulatory capital requirements, e.g. in...

One of the greatest challenges in modeling credit portfolio risk is the issue of correlations between borrowers.Up to now no consistent methodology for identifying correlations exists. In general two approachesare employed: “direct” and “indirect” modeling. While the former specify...