IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v11y2008i2p180-197.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Credit spread determinants: An 85 year perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Davies, Andrew

Abstract

This paper estimates a set of credit spread forecasting models using an 85 year history for AAA and BAA corporate bond yield data for the US. Credit spreads are defined as the corporate bond yield less the 20 year yield on US government bonds and are explained by a set of intuitively appealing financial and economic variables. Initial results relate to the application of cointegration techniques to provide long and short run estimates of the key determinants of credit spreads. The analysis is then extended to allow for an unobservable latent variable Markov Switching specification across two separate states. Finally a deterministic regime model based upon an inflation threshold is estimated demonstrating that key causal relationships exist independently across different inflationary environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Davies, Andrew, 2008. "Credit spread determinants: An 85 year perspective," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 180-197, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:11:y:2008:i:2:p:180-197
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386-4181(07)00035-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Osterwald-Lenum, Michael, 1992. "A Note with Quantiles of the Asymptotic Distribution of the Maximum Likelihood Cointegration Rank Test Statistics," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(3), pages 461-472, August.
    2. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    3. Franses,Philip Hans & Dijk,Dick van, 2000. "Non-Linear Time Series Models in Empirical Finance," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521770415.
    4. Leland, Hayne E & Toft, Klaus Bjerre, 1996. "Optimal Capital Structure, Endogenous Bankruptcy, and the Term Structure of Credit Spreads," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 987-1019, July.
    5. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1994. "Identification of the long-run and the short-run structure an application to the ISLM model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 7-36, July.
    6. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1995. "A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Fixed and Floating Rate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 789-819, July.
    7. Johansen, Soren, 1995. "Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774501.
    8. Charles S. Morris & Robert Neal & Doug Rolph, 1998. "Credit spreads and interest rates : a cointegration approach," Research Working Paper 98-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    9. Gregory R. Duffee, 1998. "The Relation Between Treasury Yields and Corporate Bond Yield Spreads," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(6), pages 2225-2241, December.
    10. Hamilton, James D., 1990. "Analysis of time series subject to changes in regime," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 39-70.
    11. Chance, Don M, 1990. "Default Risk and the Duration of Zero Coupon Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 265-274, March.
    12. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    13. Pierre Collin-Dufresn & Robert S. Goldstein & J. Spencer Martin, 2001. "The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2177-2207, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fischer, Henning & Stolper, Oscar, 2019. "The nonlinear dynamics of corporate bond spreads: Regime-dependent effects of their determinants," Discussion Papers 08/2019, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Gady Jacoby & Chuan Liao & Jonathan A. Batten, 2007. "A Pure Test for the Elasticity of Yield Spreads," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp195, IIIS.
    3. Maalaoui Chun, Olfa & Dionne, Georges & François, Pascal, 2014. "Credit spread changes within switching regimes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 41-55.
    4. Ericsson, Jan & Reneby, Joel, 2003. "Valuing Corporate Liabilities," SIFR Research Report Series 15, Institute for Financial Research.
    5. Lin, William & Sun, David, 2006. "Diversification with idiosyncratic credit spreads: a pooled estimation on heterogeneous panels," MPRA Paper 37288, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2007.
    6. Zimmermann, Paul, 2021. "The role of the leverage effect in the price discovery process of credit markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    7. Georgoutsos, Dimitris & Kounitis, Thomas, 2016. "Treasury yields and credit spread dynamics: A regime-switching approach," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 14(PA), pages 39-51.
    8. Charles S. Morris & Robert Neal & Doug Rolph, 1998. "Credit spreads and interest rates : a cointegration approach," Research Working Paper 98-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    9. Nakashima, Kiyotaka & Saito, Makoto, 2009. "Credit spreads on corporate bonds and the macroeconomy in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 309-331, September.
    10. Kim, Dong H. & Stock, Duane, 2014. "The effect of interest rate volatility and equity volatility on corporate bond yield spreads: A comparison of noncallables and callables," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 20-35.
    11. Maclachlan, Iain C, 2007. "An empirical study of corporate bond pricing with unobserved capital structure dynamics," MPRA Paper 28416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Landschoot, Astrid Van, 2008. "Determinants of yield spread dynamics: Euro versus US dollar corporate bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2597-2605, December.
    13. Guha, Rajiv & Sbuelz, Alessandro & Tarelli, Andrea, 2020. "Structural recovery of face value at default," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(3), pages 1148-1171.
    14. Sun, David & Lin, William T. & Nieh, Chien-Chung, 2007. "Long run credit risk diversification: empirical decomposition of corporate bond spreads," MPRA Paper 37283, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2008.
    15. Liu, Liang-Chih & Dai, Tian-Shyr & Wang, Chuan-Ju, 2016. "Evaluating corporate bonds and analyzing claim holders’ decisions with complex debt structure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 151-174.
    16. Viral Acharya & Sergei A. Davydenko & Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2012. "Cash Holdings and Credit Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(12), pages 3572-3609.
    17. Ericsson, Jan & Jacobs, Kris & Oviedo, Rodolfo, 2009. "The Determinants of Credit Default Swap Premia," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 109-132, February.
    18. Qiang Dai & Kenneth Singleton, 2003. "Term Structure Dynamics in Theory and Reality," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 631-678, July.
    19. Schaefer, Stephen M. & Strebulaev, Ilya A., 2008. "Structural models of credit risk are useful: Evidence from hedge ratios on corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 1-19, October.
    20. Stephanie Heck, 2022. "Corporate bond yields and returns: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(2), pages 179-201, June.

    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:eee:finmar:v:11:y:2008:i:2:p:180-197. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/finmar .

    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.