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The Market Price of Credit Risk: An Empirical Analysis of Interest Rate Swap Spreads

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  • Liu, Jun
  • Longstaff, Francis A.
  • Mandell, Ravit E.

Abstract

This paper studies the market price of credit risk incorporated into one of the most important credit spreads in the financial markets: interestrate swap spreads. Our approach consists of jointly modeling the swap and Treasury term structures using a four-factor affine credit framework and estimating the parameters by maximum likelihood. We solve for the implied special financing rate for Treasury bonds and find that the liquidity component of on-the-run bond prices can be very significant. We show that most of the variation in swap spreads is driven by changes in the liquidity of Treasury bonds rather than changes in default risk. We find that there are positive credit premia in swap spreads on average. These premia, however, vary significantly over time and were negative for much of the 1990s. Since the hedge-fund crisis of 1998, credit premia have become positive and are currently at historical highs.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Jun & Longstaff, Francis A. & Mandell, Ravit E., 2000. "The Market Price of Credit Risk: An Empirical Analysis of Interest Rate Swap Spreads," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt0zw4f9w6, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:anderf:qt0zw4f9w6
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    Cited by:

    1. Liuren Wu & Frank X. Zhang, 2005. "A no-arbitrage analysis of economic determinants of the credit spread term structure," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-59, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Wahyudi, Imam & Robbi, Abdu, 2009. "Exploring Determinant Factors of Bond Trading with Inventory Management Theory (Case Study of Indonesian Capital Market, January – March 2009)," MPRA Paper 59883, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Jul 2010.
    3. Maciej Firla-Cuchra & Tim Jenkinson, 2005. "Security Design in the Real World: Why are Securitization Issues Tranched?," Economics Series Working Papers 225, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    4. Longstaff, Francis A., 2001. "The Flight-to-Liquidity Premium in U.S. Treasury Bond Prices," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt7dc0t95b, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    5. Longstaff, Francis A. & Santa-Clara, Pedro & Schwartz, Eduardo S., 2001. "Throwing away a billion dollars: the cost of suboptimal exercise strategies in the swaptions market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 39-66, October.
    6. Berg, Tobias & Kaserer, Christoph, 2008. "Linking credit risk premia to the equity premium," CEFS Working Paper Series 2008-01, Technische Universität München (TUM), Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies (CEFS).
    7. 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.
    8. Alejandro Revéiz Hérault, "undated". "Factores determinantes de los márgenes entre bonos del gobierno y bonos corporativos en los Estados Unidos," Lecturas en Finanzas 002710, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    9. John Kiff & François-Louis Michaud & Janet Mitchell, 2003. "An Analytical Review of Credit Risk Transfer Instruments," Financial Stability Review, National Bank of Belgium, vol. 1(1), pages 125-150, June.
    10. Maciej Firla-Cuchra, 2005. "Explaining Launch Spreads on Structured Bonds," Economics Series Working Papers 230, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    11. Hayette Gatfaoui, 2003. "Risque de Défaut et Risque de Liquidité : Une Etude de Deux Composantes du Spread de Crédit," Risk and Insurance 0308005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Massoud Heidari & Liuren Wu, 2002. "Term Structure of Interest Rates, Yield Curve Residuals, and the Consistent Pricing of Interest Rates and Interest Rate Derivatives," Finance 0207010, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Sep 2002.

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