We study the relation between the credit cycle and macro-economic fundamentals in an intensity-based framework. Using rating transition and default data of U.S. corporates from Standard and Poor’s over the period 1980-2005 we directly estimate the credit cycle from the micro rating data. We...

Risk is at the center of many policy decisions in companies, governments and other institutions. The risk of road fatalities concerns local governments in planning counter- measures, the risk and severity of counterparty default concerns bank risk managers on a daily basis and the risk of...

Fat tails of q-Gaussian distributions of daily log-leverage-returns of 520 North American industrial firms reported by Katz and Tian (2013) imply a significantly higher credit risk at short time-horizons and/or large initial distances to the default barrier than forecasted by traditional...

There is a general acceptance of the fact that a significant direct relationship between financial markets and macroeconomic variables exists, especially by considering the assertion that developed financial markets correspond to high GDP levels. This paper provides an investigation of the...