Most extant structural credit risk models underestimate credit spreads while matching default rates, recoveries, leverage, and equity risk premia - a shortcoming known as the credit spread puzzle. We calibrate and estimate a model able to explain medium to long-term credit spreads by...

Using detailed loan holding data of Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs), we document empirical evidence for systemic risk due to leverage constraints on CLOs. Constrained CLOs fire sell loans downgraded to CCC or below, and thus loans widely held by constrained CLOs experience temporarily...

We embed systematic default, procyclic recovery rates and habit persistance into a model with a slight possibility of a macroeconomic disaster of reasonable magnitude. We derive analytical solutions for defaultable bond prices and show that a single set of structural parameters calibrated to the...