IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v37y2013i10p3733-3746.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Credit default swap spreads and variance risk premia

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Hao
  • Zhou, Hao
  • Zhou, Yi

Abstract

We find that the firm-level variance risk premium has a prominent explanatory power for credit spreads in the presence of market- and firm-level control variables established in the existing literature. Such predictability complements that of the leading state variable—the leverage ratio—and strengthens significantly with a lower firm credit rating, longer credit contract maturity, and model-free implied variance. We provide further evidence that (1) the variance risk premium has a cleaner systematic component than implied variance or expected variance, (2) the cross-section of firms’ variance risk premia capture systematic variance risk in a stronger way than firms’ equity returns in capturing market return risk, and (3) a structural model with stochastic volatility can reproduce the predictability pattern of variance risk premia for credit spreads.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Hao & Zhou, Hao & Zhou, Yi, 2013. "Credit default swap spreads and variance risk premia," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 3733-3746.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:37:y:2013:i:10:p:3733-3746
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2013.02.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842661300109X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2013.02.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Mark Britten‐Jones & Anthony Neuberger, 2000. "Option Prices, Implied Price Processes, and Stochastic Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 839-866, April.
    2. Andersen T. G & Bollerslev T. & Diebold F. X & Labys P., 2001. "The Distribution of Realized Exchange Rate Volatility," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 42-55, March.
    3. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    4. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2010. "Stock Options and Credit Default Swaps: A Joint Framework for Valuation and Estimation," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(4), pages 409-449, Fall.
    5. Jones, E Philip & Mason, Scott P & Rosenfeld, Eric, 1984. "Contingent Claims Analysis of Corporate Capital Structures: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 611-625, July.
    6. 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.
    7. Bollerslev, Tim & Gibson, Michael & Zhou, Hao, 2011. "Dynamic estimation of volatility risk premia and investor risk aversion from option-implied and realized volatilities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 235-245, January.
    8. Hui Chen, 2010. "Macroeconomic Conditions and the Puzzles of Credit Spreads and Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(6), pages 2171-2212, December.
    9. 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.
    10. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    11. Cremers, Martijn & Driessen, Joost & Maenhout, Pascal & Weinbaum, David, 2008. "Individual stock-option prices and credit spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2706-2715, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Cao, Charles & Yu, Fan & Zhong, Zhaodong, 2010. "The information content of option-implied volatility for credit default swap valuation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 321-343, August.
    14. Ole E. Barndorff‐Nielsen & Neil Shephard, 2002. "Econometric analysis of realized volatility and its use in estimating stochastic volatility models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 64(2), pages 253-280, May.
    15. John Y. Campbell & Glen B. Taksler, 2003. "Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2321-2350, December.
    16. Itamar Drechsler & Amir Yaron, 2011. "What's Vol Got to Do with It," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(1), pages 1-45.
    17. Huang, Xin & Zhou, Hao & Zhu, Haibin, 2012. "Assessing the systemic risk of a heterogeneous portfolio of banks during the recent financial crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 193-205.
    18. Longstaff, Francis A., 2010. "The subprime credit crisis and contagion in financial markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 436-450, September.
    19. John Lintner, 1965. "Security Prices, Risk, And Maximal Gains From Diversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 587-615, December.
    20. Benjamin Yibin Zhang & Hao Zhou & Haibin Zhu, 2009. "Explaining Credit Default Swap Spreads with the Equity Volatility and Jump Risks of Individual Firms," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5099-5131, December.
    21. George J. Jiang & Yisong S. Tian, 2005. "The Model-Free Implied Volatility and Its Information Content," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1305-1342.
    22. Long Chen & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2009. "On the Relation Between the Credit Spread Puzzle and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3367-3409, September.
    23. Andersen, Torben G. & Bollerslev, Tim & Diebold, Francis X. & Ebens, Heiko, 2001. "The distribution of realized stock return volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 43-76, July.
    24. Edwin J. Elton & Martin J. Gruber & Deepak Agrawal & Christopher Mann, 2001. "Explaining the Rate Spread on Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 247-277, February.
    25. Ravi Bansal & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Risks for the Long Run: A Potential Resolution of Asset Pricing Puzzles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1481-1509, August.
    26. Pierre Collin‐Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2001. "Do Credit Spreads Reflect Stationary Leverage Ratios?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1929-1957, October.
    27. Alexander David, 2008. "Inflation Uncertainty, Asset Valuations, and the Credit Spreads Puzzle," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(6), pages 2487-2534, November.
    28. 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.
    29. Cox, John C. & Ross, Stephen A. & Rubinstein, Mark, 1979. "Option pricing: A simplified approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 229-263, September.
    30. 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.
    31. Haibin Zhu, 2006. "An Empirical Comparison of Credit Spreads between the Bond Market and the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 29(3), pages 211-235, June.
    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. Hao Wang & Hao Zhou & Yi Zhou, 2011. "Credit default swap spreads and variance risk premia," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2011-02, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. 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.
    3. Benjamin Yibin Zhang & Hao Zhou & Haibin Zhu, 2009. "Explaining Credit Default Swap Spreads with the Equity Volatility and Jump Risks of Individual Firms," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5099-5131, December.
    4. Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Yan, Hong, 2010. "Market conditions, default risk and credit spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 743-753, April.
    5. Annaert, Jan & De Ceuster, Marc & Van Roy, Patrick & Vespro, Cristina, 2013. "What determines Euro area bank CDS spreads?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 444-461.
    6. Avino, Davide & Nneji, Ogonna, 2014. "Are CDS spreads predictable? An analysis of linear and non-linear forecasting models," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 262-274.
    7. Han, Bing & Zhou, Yi, 2015. "Understanding the term structure of credit default swap spreads," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 18-35.
    8. Kapadia, Nikunj & Pu, Xiaoling, 2012. "Limited arbitrage between equity and credit markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 542-564.
    9. Murphy, Austin & Headley, Adrian, 2022. "An empirical evaluation of alternative fundamental models of credit spreads," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Tauchen, George & Zhou, Hao, 2011. "Realized jumps on financial markets and predicting credit spreads," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 102-118, January.
    11. Leonardo Becchetti & Andrea Carpentieri & Iftekhar Hasan, 2012. "Option†Adjusted Delta Credit Spreads: a Cross†Country Analysis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 18(2), pages 183-217, March.
    12. Cao, Charles & Yu, Fan & Zhong, Zhaodong, 2010. "The information content of option-implied volatility for credit default swap valuation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 321-343, August.
    13. Ann Marie Hibbert & Ivelina Pavlova & Joel Barber & Krishnan Dandapani, 2011. "Credit Spread Changes and Equity Volatility: Evidence from Daily Data," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 46(3), pages 357-383, August.
    14. Liu, Jinyu & Zhong, Rui, 2017. "Political uncertainty and a firm's credit risk: Evidence from the international CDS market," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 53-66.
    15. repec:wyi:journl:002109 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. 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.
    17. Bai, Jennie & Goldstein, Robert S. & Yang, Fan, 2020. "Is the credit spread puzzle a myth?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 297-319.
    18. Cottrell, Simon & Yu, Xiao & Delpachitra, Sarath & Ma, Yihong, 2021. "What determines wholesale funding costs of the global systemically important banks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    19. Rombouts, Jeroen V.K. & Stentoft, Lars & Violante, Francesco, 2020. "Dynamics of variance risk premia: A new model for disentangling the price of risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 217(2), pages 312-334.
    20. Jang, Bong-Gyu & Rhee, Yuna & Yoon, Ji Hee, 2016. "Business cycle and credit risk modeling with jump risks," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 15-36.
    21. Redouane Elkamhi & Raunaq S. Pungaliya & Anand M. Vijh, 2014. "What Do Credit Markets Tell Us About the Speed of Leverage Adjustment?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(9), pages 2269-2290, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Variance risk premia; Credit default swap spreads; Option-implied variance; Expected variance; Realized variance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:jbfina:v:37:y:2013:i:10:p:3733-3746. 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/jbf .

    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.