IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ijf/ijfiec/v15y2010i1p59-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The determinants of corporate risk in emerging markets: an option-adjusted spread analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Eduardo A. Cavallo

    (Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department, USA)

  • Patricio Valenzuela

    (European University Institute, Economics Department, Italy)

Abstract

This study explores the determinants of corporate bond spreads in emerging markets economies. Using a largely unexploited data set, the paper finds that corporate bond spreads are determined by firm-specific variables, bond characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, country-specific sovereign risk, and global factors. A variance decomposition analysis shows that firm-level performance indicators account for the larger share of the variance. In addition, the paper finds that corporate spreads respond more acutely to sovereign and global risk increases rather than to decreases. This suggests two asymmetries prevalent in the data. The first is in line with the sovereign ceiling 'lite' hypothesis, which states that it appears from spreads data that sovereign risk remains a significant determinant of corporate risk although credit rating agencies have gradually moved away from a policy of never rating a corporate above the sovereign. The second is consistent with the popular notion that panics are common in emerging markets where investors are less informed and more prone to herding. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Eduardo A. Cavallo & Patricio Valenzuela, 2010. "The determinants of corporate risk in emerging markets: an option-adjusted spread analysis," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 59-74.
    • Handle: RePEc:ijf:ijfiec:v:15:y:2010:i:1:p:59-74
    DOI: 10.1002/ijfe.398
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/ijfe.398
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/ijfe.398?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barry Eichengreen & Ricardo Hausmann & Ugo Panizza, 2007. "Currency Mismatches, Debt Intolerance, and the Original Sin: Why They Are Not the Same and Why It Matters," NBER Chapters, in: Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies: Policies, Practices, and Consequences, pages 121-170, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Durbin, Erik & Ng, David, 2005. "The sovereign ceiling and emerging market corporate bond spreads," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 631-649, June.
    3. Oriana Bandiera & Gerard Caprio & Patrick Honohan & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2000. "Does Financial Reform Raise or Reduce Saving?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 239-263, May.
    4. Christopher F Baum & Mark E Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2002. "IVREG2: Stata module for extended instrumental variables/2SLS and GMM estimation," Statistical Software Components S425401, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 30 Jul 2023.
    5. Choudhry, Moorad & Lizzio, Michele, 2004. "Advanced Fixed Income Analysis," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780750662635.
    6. Mr. Eduardo Borensztein & Mr. Patricio A Valenzuela & Kevin Cowan, 2007. "Sovereign Ceilings “Lite”? The Impact of Sovereign Ratings on Corporate Ratings in Emerging Market Economies," IMF Working Papers 2007/075, International Monetary Fund.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Mr. Marcel Peter & Martín Grandes, 2005. "How Important Is Sovereign Risk in Determining Corporate Default Premia? The Case of South Africa," IMF Working Papers 2005/217, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Enrique G. Mendoza & Guillermo A. Calvo, 2000. "Capital-Markets Crises and Economic Collapse in Emerging Markets: An Informational-Frictions Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 59-64, May.
    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. Christian Klein & Christoph Stellner, 2014. "Does sovereign risk matter? New evidence from eurozone corporate bond ratings and zero‐volatility spreads," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(2), pages 64-74, April.
    2. Klein, Christian & Stellner, Christoph, 2014. "Does sovereign risk matter? New evidence from eurozone corporate bond ratings and zero-volatility spreads," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 64-74.
    3. Prati, Alessandro & Schindler, Martin & Valenzuela, Patricio, 2012. "Who benefits from capital account liberalization? Evidence from firm-level credit ratings data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1649-1673.
    4. Bedendo, Mascia & Colla, Paolo, 2015. "Sovereign and corporate credit risk: Evidence from the Eurozone," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 34-52.
    5. Ms. Sonja Keller & Mr. Ashoka Mody, 2010. "International Pricing of Emerging Market Corporate Debt: Does the Corporate Matter?," IMF Working Papers 2010/026, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Xuanjuan Chen & Jing-Zhi Huang & Zhenzhen Sun & Tong Yao & Tong Yu, 2020. "Liquidity Premium in the Eye of the Beholder: An Analysis of the Clientele Effect in the Corporate Bond Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 932-957, February.
    7. Stellner, Christoph & Klein, Christian & Zwergel, Bernhard, 2015. "Corporate social responsibility and Eurozone corporate bonds: The moderating role of country sustainability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 538-549.
    8. Mizen, Paul & Tsoukas, Serafeim, 2012. "The response of the external finance premium in Asian corporate bond markets to financial characteristics, financial constraints and two financial crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3048-3059.
    9. 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.
    10. Khalil, Samer & Mansi, Sattar & Mazboudi, Mohamad & Zhang, Andrew (Jianzhong), 2019. "Information asymmetry and the wealth appropriation effect in the bond market: Evidence from late disclosures," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 49-61.
    11. Borensztein, Eduardo & Cowan, Kevin & Valenzuela, Patricio, 2013. "Sovereign ceilings “lite”? The impact of sovereign ratings on corporate ratings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4014-4024.
    12. 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.
    13. Demirovic, Amer & Guermat, Cherif & Tucker, Jon, 2017. "The relationship between equity and bond returns: An empirical investigation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 47-64.
    14. Mizenand, Paul & Tsoukasy, Serafeim, 2012. "The response of the external finance premium in Asian corporate bond markets to financial characteristics, financial constraints and two financial crises," SIRE Discussion Papers 2012-42, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    15. Aysun Uluc, 2011. "An Alternative Method for Measuring Financial Frictions," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-31, April.
    16. Iftekhar Hasan & Liuling Liu & Gaiyan Zhang, 2016. "The Determinants of Global Bank Credit-Default-Swap Spreads," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 275-309, December.
    17. Chen, Tsung-Kang & Liao, Hsien-Hsing & Chen, Wei-Lun, 2014. "Production efficiency uncertainty and corporate credit risk: Structural form credit model perspectives," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 266-280.
    18. 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.
    19. Wei Hao & Andrew Prevost & Udomsak Wongchoti, 2018. "Are Low Equity R2 Firms More or Less Transparent? Evidence from the Corporate Bond Market," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 865-909, December.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:ijf:ijfiec:v:15:y:2010:i:1:p:59-74. 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/1076-9307/ .

    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.