Using credit default swaps (CDS) to imply a …rm’s or sovereign’s default probability is laden with di¢ culties, making the resulting estimate unreliable. This paper exposes these di¢ culties using a simple analogy to life insurance premiums. An analogy is used because the logic is more easily understood in this context. The di¢ culties are unraveling the impact of risk premium, counterparty ris...

We analyze trading opportunities that arise from differences between the bond and the CDS market. By simultaneously entering a position in a CDS contract and the underlying bond, traders can build a default-risk free position that allows them to repeatedly earn the difference between the bond asset swap spread and the CDS, known as the basis. We show that the basis size is closely related to me...

The importance of adequately modeling credit risk has once again been highlighted in the recent financial crisis. Defaults tend to cluster around times of economic stress due to poor macro-economic conditions, but also by directly triggering each other through contagion. Although credit default swaps have radically altered the dynamics of contagion for more than a decade, models quantifying the...

This paper contributes to the primarily empirical literature by conducting the first extensive empirical analysis of the impact of the degree of co-movement in the main standardized credit default swap (CDS) indices on the group of systemically relevant large complex financial institutions (LCFIs). We attempt to account for the dynamics between banks’ equity returns and most liquid CDS market i...

This paper investigates the information content of bond and Credit Default Swap prices of financial institutions for the measurement of systemic risk in the financial sector, defined as the probability that several institutions default. Because CDS contracts involve counterparty risk, this is reflected in their price, the spread paid to a dealer to insure against default. Then, the set of sprea...

Credit default swaps (CDSs) are thought to ease borrowing by protecting lenders against default. This paper develops a model of the demand for CDS when borrowers choose the riskiness of investment and verification is imperfect. The model shows that CDSs may lead to risk-shifting, increasing the probability of default. Our model provides new insights on the role of CDS during the recent financia...