IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v26y2013i8p2049-2094.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing Credit Default Swaps with Observable Covariates

Author

Listed:
  • Hitesh Doshi
  • Jan Ericsson
  • Kris Jacobs
  • Stuart M. Turnbull

Abstract

Observable covariates are useful for predicting default, but several studies question their value for explaining credit spreads. We introduce a discrete-time no-arbitrage model with observable covariates, which allows for a closed-form solution for the value of credit default swaps (CDS). The default intensity is a quadratic function of the covariates, specified such that it is always positive. The model yields economically plausible results in terms of fit, the economic impact of the covariates, and the prices of risk. Risk premiums are large and account for a smaller percentage of spreads for firms with lower credit quality. Macroeconomic and firm-specific information can explain most of the variation in CDS spreads over time and across firms, even with a parsimonious specification. These findings resolve the existing disconnect in the literature regarding the value of observable covariates for credit risk pricing and default prediction. The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Hitesh Doshi & Jan Ericsson & Kris Jacobs & Stuart M. Turnbull, 2013. "Pricing Credit Default Swaps with Observable Covariates," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(8), pages 2049-2094.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:26:y:2013:i:8:p:2049-2094
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hht015
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bégin, Jean-François & Boudreault, Mathieu & Gauthier, Geneviève, 2017. "Firm-specific credit risk estimation in the presence of regimes and noisy prices," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 306-313.
    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. Gemmill, Gordon & Marra, Miriam, 2019. "Explaining CDS prices with Merton’s model before and after the Lehman default," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 93-109.
    4. Monfort, Alain & Renne, Jean-Paul & Roussellet, Guillaume, 2015. "A Quadratic Kalman Filter," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 43-56.
    5. Carlos Caceres & Mr. Fabiano Rodrigues Rodrigues Bastos, 2016. "Understanding Corporate Vulnerabilities in Latin America," IMF Working Papers 2016/080, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Iván M. Rodríguez & Krishnan Dandapani & Edward R. Lawrence, 2019. "Measuring Sovereign Risk: Are CDS Spreads Better than Sovereign Credit Ratings?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 229-256, March.
    7. Choi, Yong Seok & Doshi, Hitesh & Jacobs, Kris & Turnbull, Stuart M., 2020. "Pricing structured products with economic covariates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 754-773.
    8. Apergis, Nicholas & Danuletiu, Dan & Xu, Bing, 2022. "CDS spreads and COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    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. Jean‐François Bégin & Mathieu Boudreault & Mathieu Thériault, 2024. "Leveraging prices from credit and equity option markets for portfolio risk management," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 122-147, January.
    11. Dubecq, Simon & Monfort, Alain & Renne, Jean-Paul & Roussellet, Guillaume, 2016. "Credit and liquidity in interbank rates: A quadratic approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 29-46.
    12. Xiaoqing Fu & Matthew C. Li & Philip Molyneux, 2021. "Credit default swap spreads: market conditions, firm performance, and the impact of the 2007–2009 financial crisis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(5), pages 2203-2225, May.
    13. Nguyen, Ha, 2023. "An empirical application of Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo to frailty correlated default models," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 103-121.
    14. Peter Christoffersen & Kris Jacobs & Xisong Jin & Hugues Langlois, 2018. "Dynamic Dependence and Diversification in Corporate Credit [Asymmetric correlations of equity portfolios]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 521-560.

    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:oup:rfinst:v:26:y:2013:i:8:p:2049-2094. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.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.