This paper uses a sample of 2,186 credit default swap (CDS) spreads quoted in the European market during the period 2002–2009 to empirically analyze which model – accounting- or market-based – better explains corporate credit risk. We find little difference in the explanatory power of...

The aim of this paper is to generalize the comprehensive structural model for defaultable fixed income bonds (considered in) into a comprehensive unified model of structural and reduced form models. In our model the bond holders receive the deterministic coupon at predetermined coupon dates and...

We examine recovery rates of the European banking sector. To this end, we employ information embedded in credit default swaps (CDS) with different levels of seniority. To estimate implied recovery rates, we extend the model of Schlafer and Uhrig-Homburg (2014) and include absolute priority...

This paper studies the valuation of a class of default swaps with the embedded option to switch to a different premium and notional principal anytime prior to a credit event. These are early exercisable contracts that give the protection buyer or seller the right to step-up, step-down, or cancel...

I build a dynamic capital structure model that demonstrates how business-cycle variations in expected growth rates, economic uncertainty, and risk premia influence firms' financing and default policies. Countercyclical fluctuations in risk prices, default probabilities, and default losses arise...

Banks and other financial institutions raise hybrid capital as part of their risk capital. Hybrid capital has no maturity, but, similarily to most corporate debt, includes an embedded issuer's call option. To obtain acceptance as risk capital, the first possible exercise date of the embedded...

This work documents the existence of a cointegration relationship between credit spreads, leverage and equity volatility for a large set of US companies. It is shown that accounting for the long-run equilibrium dynamic between these variables is essential to correctly explain credit spread...

The aim of this work is to understand and measure to what extent equity options price credit risk. With the exception of Toft and Prucyk (1997), which is a dated work based on the simplistic assumption of a reference company issuing perpetual debt, all the work in the literature which try to...

Currency and interest rate swaps are subject to a complex, two-sided default risk. Although several theoretical papers have recently addressed the problem of pricing swap credit risk, the empirical literature is almost non-existent. This is the only study we know of that uses actual transaction...

We study whether firms spread out debt maturity dates, which we call "granularity of corporate debt.'' In our model, firms that are unable to roll over expiring debt need to liquidate assets. If multiple small asset sales are less inefficient than a single large one, it can be optimal to...