We examine risk spreads charged on corporate bonds placed by emerging market borrowers on international exchanges. While global developments have an important effect on spreads, changes in firm-level default risk also matter significantly in a way consistent with theory and experience in mature...

Credit ratings have contributed to the current financial crisis. Proposals to regulate credit rating agencies focus on micro-prudential issues and aim at reducing conflicts of interest and increasing transparency and competition. In contrast, this paper argues that macro-prudential regulation is...

This paper sets out general principles for the design of financial stability frameworks, starting from an analysis of the objectives and tools of financial regulation. The paper then offers a comprehensive analysis of the costs and benefits of the two main models that have emerged for modern...

This paper examines empirically U.S. broad money demand emphasizing the role of financial market risk. We find that money demand rises with the liquidity risk of stock markets or the credit risk of corporate bond markets. After controlling for the effect of financial market risk, money demand...

In this paper, we examine the ability of the contingent claims approach (CCA) to identify corporate sector and economy-wide vulnerabilities. We apply the Moody's MfRisk model, which uses aggregated CCA principles, to assess vulnerabilities retroactively in two historical country cases. The...

After reviewing the economic reform strategy of Mauritius for the past 10 years in the face of several external shocks, we apply a balance sheet analysis (BSA) focusing on currency, maturity, and intersectoral mismatches. In reviewing developments over this decade, we find that the currency and...

This paper discusses the arrangement under the Flexible Credit Line (FCL) for Mexico. Mexico has achieved a high level of credibility in the institutional framework supporting macroeconomic policy formulation, and has a sustained a track record of implementing strong policies. Liquidity...

Credit default swaps (CDS) provide the buyer with insurance against certain types of credit events by entitling him to exchange any of the bonds permitted as deliverable against their par value. Unlike bonds, whose risk spreads are assumed to be the product of default risk and loss rate, CDS are...

This paper focuses on evidence from stock markets as it investigates the spillovers from the United States to mainland China and Hong Kong SAR during the subprime crisis. Using both univariate and multivariate GARCH models, this paper finds that China's stock market is not immune to the...

This paper presents some conventional and new measures of market, credit, and liquidity risks for government bonds. These measures are analyzed from the perspective of a sovereign's debt manager. In particular, it examines duration, convexity, M-square, skewness, kurtosis, and VaR statistics as...