We find that Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) actions (especially rate cuts) narrowed corporate credit spreads during the pre-crisis period of 2002-2007. During the 2008 crisis period, we find that both conventional cuts and quantitative easing decreased spreads. But FOMC inactions caused...

Extracting information from daily CDS spreads, we propose a measure of correlated default risk, which we show is a meaningful predictor of bankruptcy clusters. Focusing on U.S. corporate bonds, we also find that our measure of correlated default risk is more pronounced and commands a higher...

We find that Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) actions (especially rate cuts) narrowed corporate credit spreads during the pre-crisis period of 2002-2007. During the 2008 crisis period, we find that both conventional cuts and quantitative easing decreased spreads. But FOMC inactions caused...