The Determinants of Credit Default Swap Premia
50 Pages Posted: 7 Oct 2004 Last revised: 5 Sep 2009
Date Written: January 2005
Abstract
Using a new dataset of bid and offer quotes for credit default swaps, we investigate the relationship between theoretical determinants of default risk and actual market premia using linear regression. These theoretical determinants are firm leverage, volatility and the riskless interest rate. We find that estimated coefficients for these variables are consistent with theory and that the estimates are highly significant both statistically and economically. The explanatory power of the theoretical variables for levels of default swap premia is approximately 60%. The explanatory power for the differences in the premia is approximately 23%. Volatility and leverage by themselves also have substantial explanatory power for credit default swap premia. A principal component analysis of the residuals and the premia shows that there is only weak evidence for a residual common factor and also suggests that the theoretical variables explain a significant amount of the variation in the data. We therefore conclude that leverage, volatility and the riskfree rate are important determinants of credit default swap premia, as predicted by theory.
Keywords: Credit risk, Credit default swaps
JEL Classification: G12
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you want regular updates from SSRN on Twitter?
Paper statistics
Recommended Papers
-
Explaining the Rate Spread on Corporate Bonds
By Edwin J. Elton, Martin J. Gruber, ...
-
The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes
By Pierre Collin-dufresne, J. Spencer Martin, ...
-
How Much of Corporate-Treasury Yield Spread is Due to Credit Risk?
By Jing-zhi Huang and Ming Huang
-
How Much of the Corporate-Treasury Yield Spread is Due to Credit Risk?
By Jing-zhi Huang and Ming Huang
-
How Much of the Corporate-Treasury Yield Spread is Due to Credit Risk?
By Jing-zhi Huang and Ming Huang
-
Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit-Default Swap Market
By Francis A. Longstaff, Sanjay Mithal, ...
-
Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields
By John Y. Campbell and Glen B. Taksler
-
Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields
By John Y. Campbell and Glen B. Taksler
-
Structural Models of Corporate Bond Pricing: An Empirical Analysis
By Young Ho Eom, Jing-zhi Huang, ...
-
By Roberto Blanco, Simon Brennan, ...