We document a higher bond return volatility around the time of default for bonds included in CDS auctions (especially cheapest-to-deliver bonds) versus those that are not, while controlling for firm fundamentals and bond illiquidity. This finding does not extend to time periods far ahead of...

Stock price jump risk is known to be important for explaining the option-implied volatility skew generated by the Black-Scholes model. Financial leverage (distress) has an important impact on the shape of the implied volatility skew, however, we find that the impact of leverage on the implied...

Using the industry benchmark CreditGrades model to analyze credit default swap (CDS) spreads across a large number of companies during the 2007-09 credit crisis, the authors demonstrate that the performance of the model can be significantly improved by calibrating it with option-implied...