This paper considers a simple model of credit risk and derives the limit distribution of losses under different assumptions regarding the structure of systematic and idiosyncratic risks and the nature of firm heterogeneity. The theoretical results obtained indicate that if firm-specific risk...

We present a banking model with imperfect competition in which borrowers’ access to credit is improved when banks are able to transfer credit risks. However, the market for credit risk transfer (CRT) works smoothly only if the quality of loans is public information. If the quality of loans is...

The confluence of three trends in the U.S. residential housing market - rising home prices, declining interest rates, and near-frictionless refinancing opportunities - led to vastly increased systemic risk in the financial system. Individually, each of these trends is benign, but when they occur...

The Capital Assistance Program (CAP) was created by the U.S. government in February 2009 to provide backup capital to large financial institutions unable to raise sufficient capital from private investors. Under the terms of the CAP, a participating bank receives contingent capital by issuing...

This paper addresses the financial risks faced by New York dairy farmers by discussing and developing prescriptive risk-contingent operating and mortgage loan contracts. It is argued that structured credit products with an imbedded contingent claim or price put option can effectively reduce or...

(Zheng, 2009) does not realize that the government provides nonrecourse loans to investors to buy toxic assets. Nonrecourse loans allow the borrower to walk away from the loan with no penalties besides ceding the asset that the loan purchased. Thus (Zheng, 2009)'s conclusions that less well...

On April 26, 2010, the U.S. Treasury had 163 trading days to sell a $37 billion dollar stake of 7.7 billion shares in Citigroup. Citigroup's stock price on April 23, 2010, was well above the U.S. Treasury's “break even” price of $3.25. The U.S. Treasury announced that it planned an...

On December 10, 2009, the auction of JP Morgan Chase's warrants raised gross proceeds of $950 million, topping the previous warrant auction record of the 1983 Chrysler warrants in real and nominal terms. This paper analyzed the results from the secondary market trading on December 9, 2009, of...

We use the option-based Merton (1974) model to derive the implicit probability of default of 218 banks in 24 emerging economies in the period 1995-2009 from their stock prices. This solvency indicator is well comparable between banks in different countries since it does not require the selection...

This paper justifies, in an agency context, the existence of hybrid securities appeared very recently on the organized market: the cocos (contingent convertible bonds). Like the straight debt, they make it possible to profit from tax benefits of debt. And, like stocks, they provide protection...