IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hkm/wpaper/292012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the Tail Wag the Dog? The Effect of Credit Default Swaps on Credit Risk

Author

Listed:
  • Marti G. Subrahmanyam

    (New York University)

  • Dragon Yongjun Tang

    (University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research)

  • Sarah Qian Wang

    (Sarah Qian Wang)

Abstract

Credit default swaps (CDS) are derivative contracts that are widely used as tools for credit risk management. However, in recent years, concerns have been raised about whether CDS trading itself affects the credit risk of the reference entities. We use a unique, comprehensive sample covering CDS trading of 901 North American corporate issuers, between June 1997 and April 2009, to address this question. We find that the probability of both a credit rating downgrade and bankruptcy increase, with large economic magnitudes, after the inception of CDS trading. This finding is robust to controlling for the endogeneity of CDS trading. Beyond the CDS introduction effect, we show that firms with relatively larger amounts of CDS contracts outstanding, and those with relatively more "no restructuring" contracts than other types of CDS contracts covering restructuring, are more adversely affected by CDS trading. Moreover, the number of creditors increases after CDS trading begins, exacerbating creditor coordination failure for the resolution of financial distress.

Suggested Citation

  • Marti G. Subrahmanyam & Dragon Yongjun Tang & Sarah Qian Wang, 2012. "Does the Tail Wag the Dog? The Effect of Credit Default Swaps on Credit Risk," Working Papers 292012, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hkm:wpaper:292012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hkimr.org/uploads/publication/342/wp-no-29_2012-final-.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antje Brunner & Jan Pieter Krahnen, 2008. "Multiple Lenders and Corporate Distress: Evidence on Debt Restructuring," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(2), pages 415-442.
    2. Arping, Stefan, 2014. "Credit protection and lending relationships," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 7-19.
    3. Francis A. Longstaff & Sanjay Mithal & Eric Neis, 2005. "Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2213-2253, October.
    4. Giesecke, Kay & Longstaff, Francis A. & Schaefer, Stephen & Strebulaev, Ilya, 2011. "Corporate bond default risk: A 150-year perspective," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 233-250.
    5. Duffee, Gregory R. & Zhou, Chunsheng, 2001. "Credit derivatives in banking: Useful tools for managing risk?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 25-54, August.
    6. Henry T. C. Hu & Bernard Black, 2008. "Debt, Equity and Hybrid Decoupling: Governance and Systemic Risk Implications," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(4), pages 663-709, September.
    7. Alan Morrison, 2000. "Credit Derivatives, Disintermediation and Investment Decisions," OFRC Working Papers Series 2001fe01, Oxford Financial Research Centre.
    8. Hirtle, Beverly, 2009. "Credit derivatives and bank credit supply," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 125-150, April.
    9. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    10. John M. Griffin & Dragon Yongjun Tang, 2012. "Did Subjectivity Play a Role in CDO Credit Ratings?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1293-1328, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Stulz, Rene, 2010. "Credit default Swaps and the Credit Crisis," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 6, pages 157-175.
    13. Alan D. Morrison, 2005. "Credit Derivatives, Disintermediation, and Investment Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 621-648, March.
    14. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    15. Sudheer Chava & Michael R. Roberts, 2008. "How Does Financing Impact Investment? The Role of Debt Covenants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2085-2121, October.
    16. Bernadette Minton & René Stulz & Rohan Williamson, 2009. "How Much Do Banks Use Credit Derivatives to Hedge Loans?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 35(1), pages 1-31, February.
    17. Nashikkar, Amrut & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Mahanti, Sriketan, 2011. "Liquidity and Arbitrage in the Market for Credit Risk," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 627-656, June.
    18. Kay Giesecke & Francis A. Longstaff & Stephen Schaefer & Ilya Strebulaev, 2010. "Corporate Bond Default Risk: A 150-Year Perspective," NBER Working Papers 15848, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Radhakrishnan Gopalan & Vikram Nanda & Vijay Yerramilli, 2011. "Does Poor Performance Damage the Reputation of Financial Intermediaries? Evidence from the Loan Syndication Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(6), pages 2083-2120, December.
    20. Patrick Bolton & Martin Oehmke, 2011. "Credit Default Swaps and the Empty Creditor Problem," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(8), pages 2617-2655.
    21. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    22. Roberto Blanco & Simon Brennan & Ian W. Marsh, 2005. "An Empirical Analysis of the Dynamic Relation between Investment‐Grade Bonds and Credit Default Swaps," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2255-2281, October.
    23. Larry E. Jones & Rodolfo E. Manuelli, 2001. "Endogenous Policy Choice: The Case of Pollution and Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(2), pages 369-405, July.
    24. Shumway, Tyler, 2001. "Forecasting Bankruptcy More Accurately: A Simple Hazard Model," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(1), pages 101-124, January.
    25. James, Christopher, 1996. "Bank Debt Restructurings and the Composition of Exchange Offers in Financial Distress," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(2), pages 711-727, June.
    26. James R. Thompson, 2010. "Counterparty Risk in Financial Contracts: Should the Insured Worry About the Insurer?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1195-1252.
    27. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Tyler Shumway, 2008. "Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1339-1369, May.
    28. Gilson, Stuart C. & John, Kose & Lang, Larry H. P., 1990. "Troubled debt restructurings*1: An empirical study of private reorganization of firms in default," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 315-353, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jaewon Choi & Or Shachar, 2013. "Did liquidity providers become liquidity seekers?," Staff Reports 650, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    2. Juliana Salomao, 2015. "Sovereign Debt Renegotiation and Credit Default Swaps," 2015 Meeting Papers 826, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Xu, Xin, 2013. "Forecasting Bankruptcy with Incomplete Information," MPRA Paper 55024, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Mar 2014.
    4. Agostino Capponi & Martin Larsson, 2014. "Will banning naked CDS impact bond prices?," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 481-508, August.
    5. Bolton, Patrick & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Strategic conduct in credit derivative markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 652-658.

    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. Augustin, Patrick & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Wang, Sarah Qian, 2014. "Credit Default Swaps: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 1-196, December.
    2. Oehmke, Martin & Zawadowski, Adam, 2015. "Synthetic or real? The equilibrium effects of credit default swaps on bond markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 84511, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Arping, Stefan, 2014. "Credit protection and lending relationships," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 7-19.
    4. Martin, Xiumin & Roychowdhury, Sugata, 2015. "Do financial market developments influence accounting practices? Credit default swaps and borrowers׳ reporting conservatism," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 80-104.
    5. Oehmke, Martin & Zawadowski, Adam, 2016. "The anatomy of the CDS market," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118964, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Caglio, Cecilia & Darst, R. Matthew & Parolin, Eric, 2019. "Half-full or half-empty? Financial institutions, CDS use, and corporate credit risk," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    7. Clark, Brian & Donato, James & Francis, Bill B & Shohfi, Thomas D, 2023. "Bank loan renegotiation and credit default swaps," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    8. Jie Chen & Woon Sau Leung & Wei Song & Davide Avino, 2018. "Does CDS trading affect risk-taking incentives in managerial compensation?," Working Papers 2018-19, Swansea University, School of Management.
    9. András Danis, 2017. "Do Empty Creditors Matter? Evidence from Distressed Exchange Offers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1285-1301, May.
    10. Mascia Bedendo & Lara Cathcart & Lina El‐Jahel, 2016. "Distressed Debt Restructuring in the Presence of Credit Default Swaps," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(1), pages 165-201, February.
    11. Beyhaghi, Mehdi & Massoud, Nadia & Saunders, Anthony, 2017. "Why and how do banks lay off credit risk? The choice between retention, loan sales and credit default swaps," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 335-355.
    12. Mansi, Sattar A. & Qi, Yaxuan & Wald, John K., 2021. "Bond covenants, bankruptcy risk, and the cost of debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    13. Gehrig, Thomas & Füss, Roland & Rindler, Philipp B, 2011. "Scattered Trust - Did the 2007-08 financial crisis change risk perceptions?," CEPR Discussion Papers 8714, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Colonnello, Stefano, 2017. "Internal governance and creditor governance: Evidence from credit default swaps," IWH Discussion Papers 6/2017, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    15. Jeong-Bon Kim & Li Li & Mary L. Z. Ma & Frank M. Song, 2013. "CEO Option Compensation, Risk-Taking Incentives, and Systemic Risk in the Banking Industry," Working Papers 182013, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    16. Ye, Xiaoxia & Yu, Fan & Zhao, Ran, 2022. "Credit derivatives and corporate default prediction," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    17. Lei, Jin & Qiu, Jiaping & Wan, Chi & Yu, Fan, 2021. "Credit risk spillovers and cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    18. Ivanov, Ivan T. & Santos, João A.C. & Vo, Thu, 2016. "The transformation of banking: Tying loan interest rates to borrowers' CDS spreads," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 150-165.
    19. Shim, Ilhyock & Zhu, Haibin, 2014. "The impact of CDS trading on the bond market: Evidence from Asia," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 460-475.
    20. Huang, Kershen & Petkevich, Alex, 2016. "Corporate bond pricing and ownership heterogeneity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 54-74.

    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:hkm:wpaper:292012. 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: HKIMR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hkimrhk.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.