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How safe are european safe bonds? An analysis from the perspective of modern credit risk models

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  • Frey, Rüdiger
  • Kurt, Kevin
  • Damian, Camilla

Abstract

Several proposals for the reform of the euro area advocate the creation of a market in synthetic securities backed by portfolios of sovereign bonds. Most debated are the so-called European Safe Bonds or ESBies proposed by Brunnermeier et al. (2017). The potential benefits of ESBies and other bond-backed securities hinge on the assertion that these products are really safe. In this paper we provide a comprehensive quantitative study of the risks associated with ESBies and related products, using an affine credit risk model with regime switching as vehicle for our analysis. We discuss a recent proposal of Standard and Poors for the rating of ESBies, we analyse the impact of model parameters and attachment points on the size and the volatility of the credit spread of ESBies and we consider several approaches to assess the market risk of ESBies. Moreover, we compare ESBies to synthetic securities created by pooling the senior tranche of national bonds as suggested by Leandro and Zettelmeyer (2019). The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the policy implications from our analysis.

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  • Frey, Rüdiger & Kurt, Kevin & Damian, Camilla, 2020. "How safe are european safe bonds? An analysis from the perspective of modern credit risk models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:119:y:2020:i:c:s0378426620302016
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2020.105939
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Álvaro Leandro & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2019. "Creating a Euro area safe asset without mutualizing risk (much)," Capital Markets Law Journal, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 488-517.
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    4. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Sam Langfield & Marco Pagano & Ricardo Reis & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Dimitri Vayanos, 2017. "ESBies: safety in the tranches," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 32(90), pages 175-219.
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    8. Aït-Sahalia, Yacine & Laeven, Roger J.A. & Pelizzon, Loriana, 2014. "Mutual excitation in Eurozone sovereign CDS," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(2), pages 151-167.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sam Langfield, 2020. "Bridge over Troubled Monetary Union: A Reply to De Grauwe & Ji," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(S1), pages 1-10, September.
    2. Kevin Kurt & Rudiger Frey, 2021. "Markov-Modulated Affine Processes," Papers 2106.16240, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    3. Kurt, Kevin & Frey, Rüdiger, 2022. "Markov-modulated affine processes," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 391-422.

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