Eurozone Crisis and Banks’ Creditworthiness: What is New for Credit Default Swap Spread Determinants?

Abstract

The article analyses banks’ credit default swap (CDS) spread determinants, in light of the Eurozone debt crisis. The attention to this aspect is due to the very linkage between banking and sovereign sectors particularly evident during the aforementioned crisis. The study is conducted on a sample of Eurozone banks over the period 2009–2014 through a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) linear panel data regression. The variables adopted are both balance sheet ratios and macroeconomic factors. The main results confirm the attention pointed at the influence of public conditions to the banking sector, as proved by the significance of variables like the 10-year bond yields or the long-term sovereign rating. It is also interesting to observe the output dealing with public debt, which may suggest opportunities not only of investment but also of speculation for banks on the debt itself. Balance sheet ratios, instead, are not significant. Our study is an additional contribution to the strand of literature that analyses the strong interconnections between the riskiness of banks and the public sector and it is a suggestion to proceed the research with a deeper analysis on systemic risk and its impact on banking CDS spread.