Default Risk Of Firms Research Articles

The Cross-Section of Expected Returns on Defaultable Assets

This study examines the model regarding the relation between the expected returns of defaultable asset and default risk factors utilizing CDS (credit default swap). While the previous study estimates the expected returns of CDS using stock price and accounting data, this study introduces new estimation method using CDS term structure. Two factors incorporating market-wide distress risk and recovery risk are considered as the default risk factors. The results of analyzing the Korean corporate CDS market over the sample period from September 2009 to December 2016 are as follows. First, for the expected returns of CDS, there exists the negative risk premium related to market-wide distress risk covariance. Second, the finding of this negative risk premium is robust even after the market risk factors and liquidity factor are controlled for. Third, the negative premium related to recovery risk is observed but it is not statistically significant. These results imply that the investors consider the market-wide distress risk covariance as the main risk factor when pricing the Korean corporate CDSs and they require the reward taking risk as they invest CDS with the lower distress risk covariance. Therefore, our empirical results support the model that the covariance part between individual firm's distress risk and market-wide default risk changes is not diversifiable and thus the investors require the premium for this non-diversifiable risk.

Corporate governance and default risk in financial firms over the post-financial crisis period: International evidence

This paper investigates the relationship between default risk and corporate governance for financial firms in 28 countries outside of North America in the post-financial crisis period, where default risk is measured by both credit default swap (CDS) spreads and estimated by a Merton-type model. Reduced default risk helps the stock market rebound during the post-crisis period. Both internal governance variables, including institutional and insider ownership, board composition and CEO power, and external regulatory factors, are examined and they show significant effect on default risk. In addition, the impacts of various governance variables are continent-specific: they have a higher impact on default risk for Asian firms than for European firms. Regulatory factors are important moderators of the governance mechanisms for banks: higher Tier 1 capital ratios reduce both CDS and fundamental default risk; recipients of secret emergency loans from the US Federal Reserve System (the Fed) exhibit lower CDS spreads post-crisis but higher fundamental default probabilities.

The pricing of dynamic fund protection with default risk

In over-the-counter markets, many options on a defaultable instrument are subject to default risks stemming from the possibility that the option writer may not carry out its contractual obligations. In this study, we examine the valuation of dynamic fund protection with an issuer’s credit risk. By using double Mellin transforms and the method of images, we obtain the closed-form solution of vulnerable dynamic fund protection. Moreover, we analyze the value of dynamic fund protection under the default risk of firms with respect to the model parameters and demonstrate that our closed-form solution has been derived accurately and efficiently by comparing it with the solution from the Monte-Carlo simulation.

CEO Inside Debt and Risk Taking: Evidence From Property–Liability Insurance Firms

AbstractWe examine the incentive effects of CEO inside debt holdings (pensions and deferred compensation) on risk taking using the sample of U.S. publicly traded property–liability insurers. To represent managerial risk taking, we employ value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES), which capture extreme movements in the lower tail of insurer stock return distribution. We also estimate firm default risk, equity volatilities, and insurance‐related risk as alternative measures of risk taking. We document that inside debt represents a significant component of CEOs’ compensation in the insurance industry. We find that there is a significant and negative relationship between CEO inside debt holdings and risk‐taking behavior. The results suggest that the structure of executive debt‐like compensation could be a potential method of reducing managers’ risk‐taking incentives.

Default Risk and Firm Value of Shipping & Logistics Firms in Korea

ABSTRACT As shipping and logistics industry is one of the core industries in Korea, the volume was ranked in the fifth highest in the world. However, shipping and logistics industry of Korea has suffered from default risk since Global Financial Crisis in 2008. This study examines the relationship between the default risk, as measured by the Altman K-Score, and firm value, as measured by the Return on Assets (ROA), of shipping and logistics firms in Korea and compares the impact of default risk on firm value between good financial health firms and poor financial health firms. As the trends of KScores over a ten-year periods, shipping and logistics firms in Korea register weak-to-moderate financial healthy rage. We find that Altman K-Score is significantly linked with firm value and also higher performing firms as measured by the ROA exhibit higher financial health as measured by KScore. Although nine years have been passed since Global Financial Crisis 2008, Korean shipping and logistics industry is still under the financial depression. This study proposes that systematic financial alert system of Korean shipping and logistics industry should be required to decrease default risk reflecting significance of Korean economy.

Stock liquidity and default risk

This paper examines the impact of stock liquidity on firm bankruptcy risk. Using the Securities and Exchange Commission decimalization regulation as a shock to stock liquidity, we establish that enhanced liquidity decreases default risk. Stocks with the highest default risk experience the largest improvements. We find two mechanisms through which stock liquidity reduces firm default risk: improving stock price informational efficiency and facilitating corporate governance by blockholders. Of the two mechanisms, the informational efficiency channel has higher explanatory power than the corporate governance channel.

The Default Risk of Firms Examined with Smooth Support Vector Machines

In the era of Basel II a powerful tool for bankruptcy prognosis is vital for banks. The tool must be precise but also easily adaptable to the bank's objections regarding the relation of false acceptances (Type I error) and false rejections (Type II error). We explore the suitability of Smooth Support Vector Machines (SSVM), and investigate how important factors such as selection of appropriate accounting ratios (predictors), length of training period and structure of the training sample influence the precision of prediction. Furthermore we show that oversampling can be employed to gear the tradeoff between error types. Finally, we illustrate graphically how different variants of SSVM can be used jointly to support the decision task of loan officers.

Forecasting Corporate Distress in the Asian and Pacific Region

This study analyses credit default risk for firms in the Asian and Pacific region by applying two methodologies: a Support Vector Machine (SVM) and a logistic regression (Logit). Among different financial ratios suggested as predictors of default, leverage ratios and the company size display a higher discriminating power compared to others. An analysis of the dependencies between PD and financial ratios is provided along with a comparison with Europe (Germany). With respect to forecasting accuracy the SVM has a lower model risk than the Logit on average and displays a more robust performance. This result holds true across different years.

Group Affiliation in Periods of Credit Contraction and Bank's Reaction: Evidence from the Greek Crisis

Using a data set of bank loans to Greek firms during the period of the Greek sovereign crisis, we provide empirical evidence that firms affiliated with groups are less likely to default on their bank loan during a credit crunch, compared to stand-alone firms. We show that the lower default risk of affiliated firms is due to access to the internal capital market in the form of intra-group loans and to enhanced access to the restricted external financing. Furthermore, we provide empirical evidence that banks evaluate positively the group membership and that they collect private information about the delinquent affiliated firms from other firms that belong to the group. Finally, we find that banks are more likely to show forbearance against affiliated firms with non-performing loans, in order to delay additional loan charge-offs and to preserve their relationship with the rest of the group.

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Managing Employee Stock Option Expense: A Fair Value Approach

Owing to special characteristics, classic option pricing models are not well suited to the valuation of employee stock options (ESOs). This paper attempts to conduct a more general fair value estimation based on attaching performance targets to option vesting. Considering a setting that includes factors such as options that may be exercised early at employee discretion, employee exit rates and firm default risk, this paper presents a sensitivity analysis and empirical tests of option value. The results highlight the importance of considering the characteristics of ESOs in the design of performance‐vested option plans so as to provide the most attractive incentives for employees.

Effect of corporate governance on default risk in financial versus nonfinancial firms: Canadian evidence

AbstractThis paper investigates the influence of corporate governance variables on default risk of Canadian firms after the 2008 financial crisis. We provide evidence that important governance mechanisms have differential impacts between Canadian financial and nonfinancial firms. Ownership structure, (e.g., institutional ownership and insider ownership), has a significant impact on the default risk of financial firms but not on nonfinancial firms. Nonfinancial firms with more independent boards are associated with lower default risk, while financial firms with larger boards and more independent boards have higher default risk. In addition, although cross‐listing in the US reduces the default risk for Canadian nonfinancial firms, it actually increases the risk for Canadian financial firms during the postcrisis period. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Good deeds earn chits? Evidence from philanthropic family controlled firms

This study examines whether charitable family controlled firms have lower default risk. Using Taiwan data that provide clear information about firms’ benevolent intention and avoid endogeneity issue of risk and charitable activities, we show that charitable family controlled firms have lower default risk, which is proxied by value-at-risk and expected shortfall measures. Our finding shows that charitable activities bring benefits of lower risk to shareholders. This study also provides various channels that can lower default risk for the charitable firms. That is, these firms appear to have higher credit ratings, engage less in earnings management, and have higher worker productivity. This study argues that the benevolent mindset of decision makers at firms help lower default risk.

The Economy-Wide Gains from Resolving Debt Overhang

What are the gains from resolving debt overhang for firm growth and macroeconomic aggregates? This paper addresses this question through the lens of a general equilibrium model of firm dynamics and endogenous innovation in which debt overhang affects the firm innovation decision and, thus, firm expected subsequent growth. The estimated model implies that while the private gains to a firm from resolving debt overhang can be large if it faces sufficient default risk, the expected gains to firms on average are relatively modest. The social gains to long-run output from resolving debt overhang are smaller, as changes in prices and the aggregate bankruptcy rate act as dampening forces. However, the estimated model suggests the gains from resolving debt overhang over the business cycle can be large, as firm default risk rises significantly during the recession, which implies a significant decrease in firm innovation and subsequent firm growth.

Modeling Financial Sector Joint Tail Risk in the Euro Area

SummaryWe develop a novel high‐dimensional non‐Gaussian modeling framework to infer measures of conditional and joint default risk for numerous financial sector firms. The model is based on a dynamic generalized hyperbolic skewed‐t block equicorrelation copula with time‐varying volatility and dependence parameters that naturally accommodates asymmetries and heavy tails, as well as nonlinear and time‐varying default dependence. We apply a conditional law of large numbers in this setting to define joint and conditional risk measures that can be evaluated quickly and reliably. We apply the modeling framework to assess the joint risk from multiple defaults in the euro area during the 2008–2012 financial and sovereign debt crisis. We document unprecedented tail risks between 2011 and 2012, as well as their steep decline following subsequent policy actions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Corporate Governance and Default Risk in Financial Firms Over the Post Financial Crisis Period: International Evidence

This paper looks at the post-financial-crisis period, and the relationship between default risk and corporate governance for financial firms outside North America. Default risk is measured by both credit default swap spreads (CDS) and the Merton-type default probabilities from Bloomberg. Our evidence suggests that institutional ownership and board independence are negatively related to Merton-type default risk, while insider holdings, CEO duality, and board size positively relate to default risk for our whole sample firms. When we use CDS spread as a risk measure, board size and institutional holdings still show significant impact on firms’ default risk, while board independence shows mixed results. Moreover, we find that the impacts of various governance variables on firm default risk are continent-specific: most governance variables are significantly related to default risk for Asian firms; for European firms, however, only board size and institutional holdings are significant.

Implications of marketing capability and research and development intensity on firm default risk

ABSTRACTMarketing capability and research and development intensity are firm resources used to increase firm performance and reduce investor risk. This study aims to link marketing capability and research and development intensity, and their interaction to firm default risk. This study is the first to examine marketing capability and research and development intensity regarding their influences on firm default vulnerability and to demonstrate how marketing capability may strengthen research and development intensities’ power on risk reduction. The results reveal a U-shaped relationship between research and development intensity and firm default risk, while marketing capability’s impact is unidirectional. Further, marketing capability strongly moderates the relationship between research and development intensity and firm default risk. For low marketing capability firms, the U-shaped pattern is more significant. For high marketing capability firms, the pattern is not salient and the risk reduction power of research and development intensity is stronger. This research provides useful implications for marketing theories, as well as business practice.

Financial Crises, Debt Financing, and Default Risks

We examine the mechanism through which a financial crisis affects the default risk of real economy firms. We find that firms with strong dependence on bank financing suffer from higher increases in default risk than firms with no such dependence. Conversely, firms that rely solely on financing from public debt markets do not experience significant increases in default risk. We also find that the increase in default probabilities, caused by a decrease in bank lending, is only significant for firms with low credit quality. These findings suggest that the bank supply shock theory helps explain the transmission channel of shocks from the financial sector to the real economy. Finally, firms dependent on bank financing cannot completely offset adverse impacts stemming from supply shocks in bank lending by substituting bank loans with publicly traded debt.

Modeling Financial Sector Joint Tail Risk in the Euro Area

We develop a novel high-dimensional non-Gaussian modeling framework to infer measures of conditional and joint default risk for many financial sector firms. The model is based on a dynamic Generalized Hyperbolic Skewed-t block-equicorrelation copula with time-varying volatility and dependence parameters that naturally accommodates asymmetries, heavy tails, as well as non-linear and time-varying default dependence. We apply a conditional law of large numbers in this setting to define joint and conditional risk measures that can be evaluated quickly and reliably. We apply the modeling framework to assess the joint risk from multiple defaults in the euro area during the 2008–2012 financial and sovereign debt crisis. We document unprecedented tail risks during 2011–2012, as well as their steep decline after subsequent policy actions.

The Effect of Stock Liquidity on Default Risk

This paper examines the impact of stock liquidity on firm bankruptcy risk. Using the Securities and Exchange Commission’s decimalization regulation as a shock to stock liquidity, we establish that enhanced liquidity decreases default risk. Stocks with the highest default risk experience the largest improvements. We find two mechanisms through which stock liquidity reduces firm default risk: through improving stock price informational efficiency and facilitating corporate governance by blockholders. Of the two mechanisms, the informational efficiency channel has higher explanatory power than the corporate governance channel.