IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boe/boeewp/194.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Merton-model approach to assessing the default risk of UK public companies

Author

Listed:
  • Merxe Tudela
  • Garry Young

Abstract

In this paper it is shown how a Merton-model approach can be used to develop measures of the probability of failure of individual quoted UK companies. Probability estimates are then constructed for a group of failed companies and their properties as leading indicators of failure assessed. Probability estimates of failure for a control group of surviving companies are also constructed. These are used in probit regressions to evaluate the information content of the Merton-based estimates relative to information available in company accounts and in assessing Type I and Type II errors. Power curves and accuracy ratios are also examined. It is shown that there is much useful information in the Merton-style estimates.

Suggested Citation

  • Merxe Tudela & Garry Young, 2003. "A Merton-model approach to assessing the default risk of UK public companies," Bank of England working papers 194, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Documents/historicpubs/workingpapers/2003/wp194.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Briys, Eric & de Varenne, François, 1997. "Valuing Risky Fixed Rate Debt: An Extension," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 239-248, June.
    2. Black, Fischer & Cox, John C, 1976. "Valuing Corporate Securities: Some Effects of Bond Indenture Provisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 351-367, May.
    3. 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.
    4. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    5. Geroski,Paul A. & Gregg,Paul, 1997. "Coping with Recession," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521622769, September.
    6. John G. Cragg & Russell S. Uhler, 1970. "The Demand for Automobiles," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 3(3), pages 386-406, August.
    7. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1995. "A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Fixed and Floating Rate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 789-819, July.
    8. McFadden, Daniel, 1974. "The measurement of urban travel demand," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 303-328, November.
    9. Saikat Nandi, 1998. "Valuation models for default-risky securities: An overview," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 83(Q 4), pages 22-35.
    10. 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.
    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. Maclachlan, Iain C, 2007. "An empirical study of corporate bond pricing with unobserved capital structure dynamics," MPRA Paper 28416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. repec:wyi:journl:002109 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Qiang Dai & Kenneth Singleton, 2003. "Term Structure Dynamics in Theory and Reality," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 631-678, July.
    4. 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.
    5. Carolina Castagnetti & Eduardo Rossi, 2013. "Euro Corporate Bond Risk Factors," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 372-391, April.
    6. Augusto Castillo, 2004. "Firm and Corporate Bond Valuation: A Simulation Dynamic Programming Approach," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 41(124), pages 345-360.
    7. 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.
    8. Nakashima, Kiyotaka & Saito, Makoto, 2009. "Credit spreads on corporate bonds and the macroeconomy in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 309-331, September.
    9. Samuel Chege Maina, 2011. "Credit Risk Modelling in Markovian HJM Term Structure Class of Models with Stochastic Volatility," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2011, January-A.
    10. Abel Elizalde, 2006. "Credit Risk Models II: Structural Models," Working Papers wp2006_0606, CEMFI.
    11. Moraux, Franck, 2004. "Modeling the business risk of financially weakened firms: A new approach for corporate bond pricing," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 47-61.
    12. Marisa Cenci & Andrea Gheno, 2005. "Equity and debt valuation with default risk: a discrete structural model," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(12), pages 875-881.
    13. Bellalah, Mondher & Zouari, Sami & Levyne, Olivier, 2016. "The performance of hybrid models in the assessment of default risk," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PA), pages 259-265.
    14. Catherine Refait, 2000. "Estimation du risque de défaut par une modélisation stochastique du bilan : Application à des firmes industrielles françaises," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-03718527, HAL.
    15. Landschoot, Astrid Van, 2008. "Determinants of yield spread dynamics: Euro versus US dollar corporate bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2597-2605, December.
    16. Tsuji, Chikashi, 2005. "The credit-spread puzzle," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(7), pages 1073-1089, November.
    17. van Landschoot, A., 2003. "The Term Structure of Credit Spreads on Euro Corporate Bonds," Other publications TiSEM f5164bb2-6597-48c4-8b44-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Liu, Liang-Chih & Dai, Tian-Shyr & Wang, Chuan-Ju, 2016. "Evaluating corporate bonds and analyzing claim holders’ decisions with complex debt structure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 151-174.
    19. Ericsson, Jan & Reneby, Joel, 2003. "Valuing Corporate Liabilities," SIFR Research Report Series 15, Institute for Financial Research.
    20. Martin Dòzsa & Karel Janda, 2015. "Corporate asset pricing models and debt contracts," CAMA Working Papers 2015-33, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    21. Viral Acharya & Sergei A. Davydenko & Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2012. "Cash Holdings and Credit Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(12), pages 3572-3609.

    More about this item

    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:boe:boeewp:194. 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: Digital Media Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boegvuk.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.