How Do Large Banks Use Credit Default Swaps to Manage Risks? The Bank-Firm Level Evidence

Abstract

We test five hypotheses on whether banks use CDS to hedge corporate loans, provide credit enhancements, obtain regulatory capital relief, and exploit banking relationship and private information. Using new data that link large banks’ CDS positions and syndicated lending on individual firms, we find strong evidence for the credit enhancement and regulatory capital relief hypotheses, but mixed evidence for the hedging, banking relationship, and private information hypotheses. Banks buy and sell more CDS on their borrowers, but their net CDS positions and lending status are largely unrelated. We find no evidence of bank using CDS to exploit private information.