We model 1927-1997 U.S. business failure rates using a time series approach based on unobserved components. Clear evidence is found of cyclical behavior in default rates. The cycle has a period of around 10 years. We also detect longer term movements in default probabilities and default...

Dynamic models for credit rating transitions are important ingredients for dynamic credit risk analyses. We compare the properties of two such models that have recently been put forward. The models mainly differ in their treatment of systematic risk, which can be modeled either using discrete...

We empirically compare a wide range of term structure models used in the pricing and, in particular, hedging of caps and swaptions. We analyze the influence of the number of factors on the hedging and pricing results, and investigate the type of data—interest rate or derivative price—in...

Using a limiting approach to portfolio credit risk, we obtain analytic expressions for the tail behavior of credit losses. To capture the co-movements in defaults over time, we assume that defaults are triggered by a general, possibly non-linear, factor model involving both systematic and...

We model 1927-1997 U.S. business failure rates using a time series approach based on unobserved components. Clear evidence is found of cyclical behavior in default rates. The cycle has a period of around 10 years. We also detect longer term movements in default probabilities and default...

Dynamic models for credit rating transitions are important ingredients for dynamic credit risk analyses. We compare the properties of two such models that have recently been put forward. The models mainly differ in their treatment of systematic risk, which can be modeled either using discrete...

Using a limiting approach to portfolio credit risk, we obtain analyticexpressions for the tail behavior of the distribution of credit losses. We showthat in many cases of practical interest the distribution of these losses haspolynomial ('fat') rather than exponential ('thin') tails. Our...

We consider portfolio credit loss distributions based on a factor model for individual exposures and establish an analytic characterization of the credit loss distribution if the number of exposures tends to infinity. Using this limiting distribution, we explain how skewness and leptokurtosis of...

In the literature on stochastic programming models for practical portfolio investment problems, relatively little attention has been devoted to the question how the necessarily approximate description of the asset-price uncertainty in these models influences the optimal solution. In this paper...