IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bfr/fisrev/2009138.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Credit default swaps and financial stability: risks and regulatory issues

Author

Listed:
  • Duquerroy, A.
  • Gauthier, N.
  • Gex, M.

Abstract

The credit default swap (CDS) market has grown much faster than other derivatives markets since its inception. Even though it is dwarfed by the interest rate derivatives market, which is eight times larger, its growth has affected the stability of the financial system. CDS were originally designed as a risk transfer tool to allow investors to hedge their position in the debt of a reference entity, but much of the activity in this market is also speculative (Olléon-Assouan, 2004). Risk management in the CDS market has certainly improved significantly, reflected in the fact that gross notional volumes have fallen remarkably as a result of trade compression. Nevertheless there is still no accurate indication of how much risk has actually been transferred with these instruments, and this is a major concern for financial stability. Even a rough estimate of market size ranges from USD 29 trillion to USD 38 trillion at end-2008. Clarifying and harmonising information is vitally important, particularly since the uncertainty surrounding market participants’ risk exposure contains the seeds of systemic contagion. There is now a pressing need for better market supervision based on the active participation of regulators. The task has already been made easier by a number of public and private initiatives aimed at improving the functioning of the market and monitoring risks more effectively. The most tangible evidence of these combined efforts can be found in various plans for a clearinghouse that emerged in 2008 and 2009. Aside from its practical limitations, however, this solution cannot be extended to all CDS classes. And regulators still face the sizeable challenge of assessing overall counterparty risk on the CDS market and preventing concentration and formation of systemic exposures.

Suggested Citation

  • Duquerroy, A. & Gauthier, N. & Gex, M., 2009. "Credit default swaps and financial stability: risks and regulatory issues," Financial Stability Review, Banque de France, issue 13, pages 75-88, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bfr:fisrev:2009:13:8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/default/files/medias/documents/financial-stability-review-13_2009-09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zsolt Darvas, 2011. "Debt restructuring in the euro area- A necessary but manageable evil?," Policy Contributions 567, Bruegel.
    2. Michał Adam, 2013. "Spillovers and contagion in the sovereign CDS market," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 44(6), pages 571-604.
    3. Vogel, Heinz-Dieter & Bannier, Christina E. & Heidorn, Thomas, 2013. "Functions and characteristics of corporate and sovereign CDS," Frankfurt School - Working Paper Series 203, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
    4. Shalendra D. Sharma, 2013. "Credit Default Swaps: Risk Hedge or Financial Weapon of Mass Destruction?," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 303-311, October.
    5. Christina E. Bannier & Thomas Heidorn & Heinz-Dieter Vogel, 2014. "Characteristics and development of corporate and sovereign CDS," Journal of Risk Finance, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 15(5), pages 482-509, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bfr:fisrev:2009:13:8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael brassart (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.