Modelling the link between the global macro-financial factors and firms’ default probabilities constitutes an elementary part of financial sector stress-testing frameworks. Using the Global Vector Autoregressive(GVAR) model and constructing a linking satellite equation for the firm-level...

In this paper, we explore two of the most relevant theories that explain financial policy in small and medium enterprises (SMEs): pecking order theory and trade-off theory. The theoretical section provides an overview of contemporary theories of capital structure. According to the pecking order...

We study how sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investments affect the credit risk of target companies as measured by the change in their credit default swap (CDS) spreads around the investment announcement. We find that the CDS spread of target companies decreases, on average, following an SWF...

Credit risk assessment is a crucial part of macroprudential analysis, with the aggregate nonperforming loan (NPL) ratio serving as a proxy for the economy-wide probability of default of the banking sector’s overall loan exposure. Therefore, the factors driving the NPL ratio deserve a lot of...

As a follow-up study to the author’s previous paper on “Nonperforming Loans in CESEE – What Do They Comprise?”, the present contribution focuses on the definitions of nonperforming loans (NPLs) in a number of Western European nations – Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy,...

Credit risk models used in quantitative risk management treat credit risk analysis conceptually like a single person decision problem. From this perspective an exogenous source of risk drives the fundamental parameters of credit risk: probability of default, exposure at default and the recovery...

The importance of estimation of a firm's probability of default increased significantly during the economic and financial crisis for financial institutions, which can be explained by the fact that the share of nonperforming loans increased in this period. The probability of default can be...

We investigate whether and how business credit information sharing helps to better assess the default risk of private firms. Private firms represent an ideal testing ground because they are smaller, more informationally opaque, riskier, and more dependent on trade credit and bank loans than...

Credit risk governs all financial transactions and it is defined as the risk of suffering a loss due to certain shifts in the credit quality of a counterpart. Credit risk literature gravitates around two main modeling approaches: the structural approach and the reduced form approach. In addition...

Empirical studies have found that a low interest rate environment accelerates firmsf investment and debt financing, leading to subsequent balance-sheet problems in many countries in recent years. We examine the mechanism whereby firmsf debt financing and investment become more accelerated and...