We propose a new method for analysing multi-period stress scenarios for portfolio credit risk more systematically than in the current practice of macro stress testing. Our method quantifies the plausibility of scenarios by considering the distance of the stress scenario from an average scenario....

This article proposes several simple financial market reforms that can help regulators both identify systemically risky institutions and mitigate the systemic risk associated with derivative trading, especially trading in credit derivatives such as credit default swaps.The Federal Reserve (or...

Using 2,956 CEO turnovers from 1993 to 2009, I find that default probability is useful in understanding and predicting forced CEO turnovers for non-distressed firms, controlling for conventional performance measures, such as stock performance. The high predictive power is not explained by...

We examine bankruptcy within business groups. Groups have incentives to support financially distressed subsidiaries as the bankruptcy of a subsidiary may impose severe costs on the group as a whole. In several countries around the world, bankruptcy courts often “pierce the corporate veil”...

This paper explores the dynamic relationship between stock market implied credit spreads, CDS spreads, and bond spreads. A general VECM representation is proposed for changes in the three credit spread measures which accounts for zero, one, or two independent cointegration equations, depending...

This paper studies the optimal clearing arrangement for bilateral financial contracts in which an assessment of counterparty credit risk is crucial for efficiency. The economy is populated by borrowers and lenders. Borrowers are subject to limited commitment and hold private information about...

Bilateral financial contracts typically require an assessment of counterparty risk. Central clearing of these financial contracts allows market participants to mutualize their counterparty risk, but this insurance may weaken incentives to acquire and to reveal information about such risk. When...

Collateral is a widely used, but not well understood, debt-contracting feature. Two broad strands of theoretical literature explain collateral as arising from the existence of either ex ante private information or ex post incentive problems between borrowers and lenders. However, the extant...

We analyze the optimal pricing of government-sponsored bank debt guarantees within the context of an asset substitution framework. We show that the desirability of fair pricing of guarantees depends on the degree of transparency of the banking sector: in relatively opaque banking systems, fair...

This paper uses a unique data set from credit files of six leading German banks to provide some empirical insights into their rating systems used to classify corporate borrowers. On the basis of the New Basle Capital Accord, which allows banks to use their internal rating systems to compute...