This article compares the linkages between credit fundamentals, ratings and value-at-risk measures for CDO tranches with those for corporate bond exposures. A sensitivity analysis incorporating market information and rating migrations data reveals that the behaviour of CDO tranche ratings can...

A model-based assessment of credit risk is subject to both specification and calibration errors. Focusing on a well known credit risk model, we propose a methodology for quantifying the relative importance of alternative sources of such errors and apply this methodology to a large data set. We...

Contractual terms related to the definition of trigger events and deliverable obligations on single-name CDSs are priced into CDS spreads. Pricing of the differences in contract terms appears to have generally converged over time, although there still seems to be evidence of a degree of regional...

House prices generally depend on inflation, the yield curve and bank credit, but national differences in the mortgage markets also matter. House prices are more sensitive to short-term rates where floating rate mortgages are more widely used and more aggressive lending practices are associated...

Emerging Asia has witnessed rapid growth of private housing and market-based housing finance in the past decade; nevertheless, market development has been uneven across countries. There is evidence that, in those economies with more flexible housing finance markets, house prices are more responsive to...

We identify three business models using balance sheet characteristics of 222 international banks and a data-driven procedure. We find that institutions engaging mainly in commercial banking activities have lower costs and more stable profits than those more heavily involved in capital market...

Even when securitised assets are simple, transparent and of high quality, risk assessments will be uncertain. This will call for safeguards against potential undercapitalisation. Since the uncertainty concentrates mainly in securitisation tranches of intermediate seniority, the safeguards...

We use tools of extreme value theory to extract information about rare events from market prices. We find that such information contributes materially to measures of banks' systemic importance. These measures exhibit strong and intuitive relationships with simple characteristics of banks'...

Prudential tools that target financial stability need to be calibrated at the level of the financial system but implemented at the level of each regulated institution. They require a methodology for the allocation of system-wide risk to the individual institution in line with its systemic...

A measure of risk premium is derived from the comparison of spot and option prices across the US equity and eurodollar markets. Risk premia in both markets co-move with volatility risk. Option prices, however, seem to underreact to changes in return volatility forecasts.