This paper explores the economic determinants of market-assessed sovereign risk of members of the European monetary union. The empirical work is innovative in its Merton structural specification of appropriate inputs. It provides a theoretical background for the empirical investigation of...

Despite continued advances in the state of the art, stress tests predict failure less often than would seem reasonable. This paper argues that even if a stress test produces a good estimate for aggregate losses, failing to account for unevenness of losses could easily lead to an under-estimate...