Using the pulled to par returns, proposed by [27] for computing historical V@R of bonds, we develop a way of extracting – at any reference date before maturity – implicit default propensities from observed bond quotes. This method is new to the literature and it has the advantage on focusing...

Due to bond prices pull-to-par, zero-coupon bond historical returns are not stationary, as they tend to zero as time to maturity approaches. Given that the historical simulation method for computing value at risk (VaR) requires a stationary sequence of historical returns, zero-coupon bonds'...