[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bis/bisqtr/0312e.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The credit spread puzzle

Author

Listed:
  • Jeffery D Amato
  • Eli M Remolona
Abstract
Why are spreads on corporate bonds much wider than would be implied by expected losses from default? Previous explanations of this puzzle have assumed that investors can diversify away the risk that actual losses in a corporate bond portfolio will exceed expected losses. However, the skewness in the distribution of corporate bond returns implies that achieving such diversification will require an extraordinarily large portfolio. We present evidence from the market for collateralised debt obligations suggesting that such large portfolios are unattainable. Hence, investors always face the risk that actual losses will exceed expectations. Credit spreads are so wide because they compensate investors for such risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffery D Amato & Eli M Remolona, 2003. "The credit spread puzzle," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:bisqtr:0312e
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt0312e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt0312e.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nickell, Pamela & Perraudin, William & Varotto, Simone, 2000. "Stability of rating transitions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 203-227, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Paul Schultz, 2001. "Corporate Bond Trading Costs: A Peek Behind the Curtain," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 677-698, April.
    4. Delianedis, Gordon & Geske, Robert, 2001. "The Components of Corporate Credit Spreads: Default, Recovery, Tax, Jumps, Liquidity, and Market Factors," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt32x284q3, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    5. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    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. Brian BARNARD, 2017. "Rating Migration and Bond Valuation: Decomposing Rating Migration Matrices from Market Data via Default Probability Term Structures," Expert Journal of Finance, Sprint Investify, vol. 5(1), pages 49-72.
    2. Brian BARNARD, 2017. "Rating Migration and Bond Valuation: Decomposing Rating Migration Matrices from Market Data via Default Probability Term Structures," Expert Journal of Finance, Sprint Investify, vol. 5, pages 49-72.
    3. Kucuk, Ugur N., 2010. "Non-default Component of Sovereign Emerging Market Yield Spreads and its Determinants: Evidence from Credit Default Swap Market," MPRA Paper 27428, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Simonne Varotto, 2001. "Credit Risk Diversification," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2001-07, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    5. Gatfaoui Hayette, 2004. "Idiosyncratic Risk, Systematic Risk and Stochastic Volatility: An Implementation of Merton’s Credit Risk Valuation," Finance 0404004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Perraudin, William & Taylor, Alex P., 2004. "On the consistency of ratings and bond market yields," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 2769-2788, November.
    7. Liuren Wu & Frank Xiaoling Zhang, 2008. "A No-Arbitrage Analysis of Macroeconomic Determinants of the Credit Spread Term Structure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(6), pages 1160-1175, June.
    8. Samir Kadiric & Arthur Korus, 2019. "The effects of Brexit on credit spreads: Evidence from UK and Eurozone corporate bond markets," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 65-102, March.
    9. Brian BARNARD, 2018. "Rating Migration and Bond Valuation: Ahistorical Interest Rate and Default Probability Term Structures," Expert Journal of Finance, Sprint Investify, vol. 6(1), pages 16-30.
    10. Fei Leng & Gregory Noronha, 2019. "Relative value in corporate bond sectors," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 717-735, April.
    11. Song Han & Hao Zhou, 2016. "Effects of Liquidity on the Non-Default Component of Corporate Yield Spreads: Evidence from Intraday Transactions Data," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(03), pages 1-49, September.
    12. Gann, Philipp, 2009. "Liquidität, Risikoeinstellung des Kapitalmarktes und Konjunkturerwartung als Preisdeterminanten von Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) - Eine simulationsgestützte Analyse," Discussion Papers in Business Administration 10582, University of Munich, Munich School of Management.
    13. 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.
    14. Samir Kadiric & Arthur Korus, 2018. "Effects of Brexit on Corporate Yield Spreads: Evidence from UK and Eurozone Corporate Bond Markets," EIIW Discussion paper disbei251, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    15. Turkmen Muldur Gozde & Kandir Serkan Yılmaz & Onal Yıldırım Beyazıt, 2019. "Investor Sentiment and Speculative Bond Yield Spreads," Foundations of Management, Sciendo, vol. 11(1), pages 177-186, January.
    16. Helwege, Jean & Huang, Jing-Zhi & Wang, Yuan, 2014. "Liquidity effects in corporate bond spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 105-116.
    17. Bali, Turan G. & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Wen, Quan, 2021. "Long-term reversals in the corporate bond market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(2), pages 656-677.
    18. 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.
    19. Maul, D. & Schiereck, D., 2017. "The bond event study methodology since 1974," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 80723, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    20. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Schuermann, Til & Treutler, Bjorn-Jakob & Weiner, Scott M., 2006. "Macroeconomic Dynamics and Credit Risk: A Global Perspective," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 1211-1261, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:bis:bisqtr:0312e. 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: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.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.