Prior literature mostly finds bond yield spreads to be insufficiently explained by credit risk (the 'credit spread puzzle'). Recently, Feldhütter and Schaefer (2018) and Bai et al. (2020) revived this debate. We utilize the removal of sovereign guarantees for savings banks and state banks in...

Credit spreads are the yields of risky debt securities minus risk-free rates. The finance literature has long argued which share of them is due to credit risk and which share results from other factors. We suggest a novel set of multiple quasi-natural experiments based on government guarantees...

Credit default swaps (CDS) played an important role in the financial crisis of 2008. While CDS can be used to hedge risks, they can also be used for speculative purposes (as occurred during the financial crisis) and regulations have been proposed to limit such speculative use. Here, we provide...

The distance to default (DD) and the probability of default (PD) are the essential credit risks in the finance world. It provides an estimate of the likelihood that a borrower will be unable to meet its debt obligations. It is crucial to know which parameter effects more on DD and PD so that...