Levels Of Default Risk Research Articles

Debtholders' reaction to sustainability reporting regulations: International evidence

AbstractThis study investigates the impact of mandatory sustainability reporting on the affected firms' debt financing costs. Leveraging sustainability disclosure regulations enacted in 36 jurisdictions from 1998 to 2022 and using a staggered difference‐in‐differences empirical approach, we find that the regulation adoption firms experience a reduction in the debt financing cost subsequent to the mandate. Channel tests reveal that the benefit of a lower cost of debt is driven by greater transparency on sustainable practices and improved sustainability performance, which lead to a lower level of default risk stemming from sustainability‐related concerns. Cross‐sectional analyses further indicate that the debt financing cost reduction effect is more pronounced if the sustainability reporting regulations are issued by a government institution, on a full compliance basis, and with stronger enforcement. Our results provide policymakers with further evidence on the ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of sustainability disclosure mandates.

Research on the Risk of Local Government Special Debt Based on KMV Model: Taking A Province as an Example

Since 2015, the issuance of special bonds by local governments has experienced rapid growth. Special bonds have played a constructive role in stimulating fixed asset investment and infrastructure development, emerging as a pivotal financing mechanism for local governments. This study takes A province as a case study, compiling data on its bond issuance and employing the KMV model to calculate the anticipated default probability and overall default risk of A province's special bonds during 2023-2025. Furthermore, a comparative analysis is conducted with neighboring provinces such as C and B. The findings indicate that A province's government debt risk is generally manageable; however, there exists some level of default risk associated with special bonds. It should be noted that when considering refinancing bond issuance, the repayment of principal and interest on local government special bonds heavily relies on these refinancing instruments, temporarily reducing but not eliminating default risk. Finally, based on empirical analysis results, several policy recommendations are proposed to address the risks posed by local government debt.

Female CEOs and default risk in listed family firms

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of female CEO board members on listed family firms’ corporate default risk, integrating upper echelons theory with social role theory and the socio-emotional wealth approach and proxying default risk with the Black–Scholes–Merton model. It also searches for possible differences attributable to the type of female CEO.Design/methodology/approachThis study is applied to a longitudinal sample of listed US family firms. After a preliminary analysis of the main descriptive, several models are estimated with the system GMM estimator, which is a panel data estimator. The models are dynamic, including the lagged value of the dependent variable. In addition, the model estimation is repeated with a different measure of default risk, for robustness.FindingsThis research findings show that default risk diminishes in the presence of a female CEO, whose reduction is even greater if she is a family member. The results are proven to be robust to the measure for proxying default risk.Originality/valueThis study primarily contributes to the existing literature by exploring a possible link between female CEOs, particularly those with a family affiliation, and a lower level of default risk in family firms. It also provides practical implications for policymakers, who would be advised to promote conditions enabling women to contribute towards family business viability. In addition, this study offers encouragement for family business owners to value the potential of their female family members in company succession processes.

Leadership in a pandemic: Do more able managers keep firms out of trouble?

The Coronavirus crisis has led to unprecedented economic shocks to the corporate world and challenged how corporate management contributes to business resilience amid the pandemic. Employing a novel measure of managerial ability constructed for a large sample of U.S. publicly listed firms, we document that firms led by higher managerial ability exhibit lower stock return volatility, higher operating performance, and lower levels of default risk amid the pandemic. A difference-in-differences analysis suggests that the impact of managerial ability on firm performance is stronger during the pandemic than during the pre-pandemic period. The effect of managerial competency on corporate resiliency is more pronounced among firms that have high exposure to COVID-19. In addition, firms led by high managerial competency management are associated with higher stock liquidity and are less likely to exhibit employment, healthcare, safety, and consumer protection related violations amid the pandemic.

The Internal Model of Default Credit for Rural Banks in Indonesia

The urgency of the internal model of default credit for the rural bank in Indonesia is increasing due to the recent acceleration of the increase in Non-Performing Loans at rural banks. This research will formulate an internal model of default credit that can reduce the level of default risk in rural banks based on the explanatory sequential design of mixed research method. The findings of quantitative analysis integration by Chi-Square Analysis, Discriminant Analysis, and Logistics Regression analysis at BPR BKK Pekalongan Regency in 2021 will be explored further by qualitative research. Using nine variables that affect debtors' failure, this study finds that the interest rate is a variable that consistently affects the status of default loans using the integration of 3 analyses and qualitative analysis. The study results indicate that rural banks need to pay more attention to determining credit interest rates when prospective debtors apply for credit. The determination of interest rates is related to compensation for risks faced by rural banks in connection with asymmetric information about the debtor's ability to pay while considering the interest rate determined by the IDIC.

Banking networks, systemic risk, and the credit cycle in emerging markets

We study how globalization impacts systemic risk in emerging markets. We extend a large literature on systemic risk in the US, Europe, and other developed countries to emerging markets, which are relatively under-researched. Our findings are based on a large-scale empirical examination of systemic risk among 1048 financial institutions in a sample of 23 emerging markets, broken down into 5 regions, along with 369 U.S. financial institutions. Using an additively decomposable systemic risk score that combines banking system interconnectedness with default probabilities, systemic risk is quantified for each region, across time. The empirical analyses suggest that emerging markets’ systemic risk is heterogeneous across regions, is strongly dependent on the interconnectedness of the banking system within each region, and drives the level of default risk in each region, while the regions are compartmentalized away from each other and insulated from the United States. The systemic risk score may be used as a policy variable in each emerging market region to manage the credit cycle. Our evidence is consistent with the notion that globalization engenders financial stability and does not lead to large systemic risk spillovers across emerging market regions.

The role of internal corporate governance mechanisms on default risk: A systematic review for different institutional settings

Recent financial downturns, characterized by the significant failures of firms, have revealed the need to control credit risk. Latest literature has shown that weak corporate governance structures are related to high levels of default risk, leading to financial instability. In this context, we aim to summarize the literature that focuses on the role that internal corporate governance plays in the credit risk of firms, specifically considering three corporate governance components: ownership structure, board structure and financial stakeholders’ rights and relations. Additionally, we analyse whether the effectiveness of the internal mechanisms depends on particular key factors, especially the institutional setting and the type of mechanisms considered. Finally, new lines of research are identified for future research.

Aggregate insider trading and the prediction of corporate credit spread changes

This paper shows that equity-based aggregate insider trading predicts future changes in US corporate credit spreads. Results suggest that the closer insiders are involved in daily business activities, the greater the predictive power of those insiders’ transactions is. In line with the literature, we reason and find that closely involved insiders are better at gauging future changes in cash flow realizations eventually affecting a firm’s default risk, because these insiders have greater access to in-firm information. The predictive power of aggregate insider trading doubles each time we increase the forecast horizon and each time when gradually increasing the level of default risk from BBB to CCC spreads. For the standard BBB–AAA spread, a univariate model explains up to 52% in annual credit spread change variation and is economically meaningful. An increase in one standard deviation in aggregate insider trading translates into a decrease of up to 72% of the standard deviation of annual credit spread changes. The predictive power of aggregate insider trading is neither just driven by the 2007/08 financial crisis, nor only by information conveyed from net purchasing or net selling insiders. Our results recommend portfolio and risk managers to take aggregate inside information and the heterogeneity among insiders into account when assessing future aggregate default risk.

Management Earnings Forecasts and the Cost of Debt

Prior studies have indicated that earnings are useful for bond market investors and that beating earnings benchmarks is related to a firm’s lower cost of debt. This study examines whether management earnings forecasts are related to a firm’s cost of debt. Our results indicate that (a) positive forecast innovations (i.e., forecasted increases in earnings) are related to a firm’s lower bond yield spread after controlling for the effect of other earnings benchmarks and (b) the negative association between positive forecast innovations and bond yield spread is weaker for firms with high default risk than for those with low default risk. The results suggest that management earnings forecasts are useful for investors in the Japanese bond market and are consistent with the findings in the equity market. However, the usefulness of management earnings forecasts in the bond market depends on a firm’s level of default risk. Our results suggest that bond investors discount the management earnings forecasts of firms with high default risk because such forecasts are more likely to have an optimistic bias.

Does the productivity of labor influence credit risk? new evidence from South Korea

ABSTRACTUsing a sample of 1,666 Korean KRX listed firm observations, we find a positive relation between the productivity of labor in period t and credit ratings in period t + 1, suggesting that firms that use the least amount of input (labor) to achieve output (sales) are considered to have decreasing levels of default risk. After we divide our sample into investment grade and non-investment grade firm samples, the relation changes. We find a consistent relation for the investment grade sample. However, the relation is negative for the non-investment grade suggesting that market participants capture NIG firm’s potential detrimental behavior.

Does corporate governance quality affect default risk? The role of growth opportunities and stock liquidity

A series of defaults, a distinctive corporate environment and inconclusive findings in literature make Australia an interesting case in which to investigate the association between corporate governance and default risk. Using a large panel of 1086 non-financial firms from 2001 to 2013, we find that better governed firms are strongly associated with a lower level of default risk, and that the association is stronger among firms with more growth opportunities. Moreover, empirical evidence supports the role of stock liquidity as a channel of the relationship. Overall these findings have practical implications for the stakeholders in Australia.

What Drives Corporate Asset Prices: Short- or Long-Run Risk?

This paper addresses this question with an asset-pricing model featuring endogenous corporate policies. Long-run risk reflects a firm’s profit exposure to slowly-moving expected consumption growth, whereas short-run risk captures the exposure to frequent unexpected changes in consumption growth. Long-run risk reduces a firm’s optimal leverage while driving most of the equity risk premium. The contribution of short-run risk increases during expansions and for firms with higher idiosyncratic volatility, but remains similar across levels of default risk and systematic volatility. These findings contribute to understanding the expected return on a stock, both over time and in the cross-section.

Beating market expectations and the pricing of firms’ probability of default

This study explores the impact of beating analysts' forecasts on investors' perceptions about firms' default probability. The information contained in analysts’ forecasts, both earnings and revenues, provides additional information to investors in pricing CDSs. While previous research has focused on the impact of beating analysts’ earnings forecasts, this study shows that firms that beat analysts' revenue forecasts also experience, on average, a decrease in the CDS premium around the earnings announcement date. This study also documents that the effect is stronger when firms beat/miss both earnings and revenue forecasts. When firms beat (miss) earnings and miss (beat) revenues, the effect of earnings is the dominant signal. These effects are stronger for firms with high levels of default risk.

Is Fair Pricing Possible? An Analysis of Participating Life Insurance Portfolios

AbstractAbstractPooling individual customers with different inception dates into a single legal entity may generate intergenerational subsidies that are accentuated when the insurer has limited liability. This article aims to investigate whether an insurer can charge fair premiums while simultaneously ensuring identical levels of default risk—measured by the value of the default put option ratio—for all generations. The decision variables for achieving these goals are asset allocation and the amount of the insurer's equity capital. We propose an accounting framework where the insurer controls for insolvency positions annually after the first contract is issued. Additionally, a run‐off framework is developed where the insurer does not declare bankruptcy in case of an insolvency, but instead stops issuing new policies and runs the company until the assets are exhausted or the last policyholder is paid. We find that intergenerational subsidies and different levels of default risk per generation cannot be avoided whenever we face a positive default risk. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark

The Impact of Extended Liability on Bank Runs: Evidence from the Panic of 1893

Prior to the Great Depression, regulators used extended liability to encourage conservative banking and enhance depositor protection. Using a difference-in-difference setup, we study how extended liability affected deposit withdrawals during the panic of 1893. We compare the capital and portfolio management of national banks that were subject to double liability (limited liability) to that of state banks that were subject to unlimited liability. We find that banks with stricter shareholder liability targeted a lower level of default risk and experienced smaller liquidity shocks. State banks held more secured loans and used less leverage than national banks. State banks also experienced less deposit withdrawals during the panic. Our findings show that extended liability contributed to financial stability by discouraging risky activities and mitigating runs.

An Incentive‐Compatible Experiment on Probabilistic Insurance and Implications for an Insurer's Solvency Level

ABSTRACTThis article is the first to conduct an incentive‐compatible experiment using real monetary payoffs to test the hypothesis of probabilistic insurance, which states that willingness to pay for insurance decreases sharply in the presence of even small default probabilities as compared to a risk‐free insurance contract. In our experiment, 181 participants state their willingness to pay for insurance contracts with different levels of default risk. We find that the willingness to pay sharply decreases with increasing default risk. Our results, hence, strongly support the hypothesis of probabilistic insurance. Furthermore, we study the impact of customer reaction to default risk on an insurer's optimal solvency level using our experimentally obtained data on insurance demand. We show that an insurer should choose to be default‐free rather than having even a very small default probability. This risk strategy is also optimal when assuming substantial transaction costs for risk management activities undertaken to achieve the maximum solvency level.

Are the Funding Strategies and Bank Risk Different in Greenfield and Takeover Banks? Evidence from Foreign Banks in Bulgaria

This paper examines the implications of entry mode and funding strategy for bank risk using data on foreign banks in Bulgaria from April 2004 to March 2014. We find that the two types of foreign entry modes - greenfield and takeover - differ in terms of funding strategy, particularly with regard to reliance on wholesale funding. Taken together with the influence of bank funding structure on risk, this heterogeneity, with respect to funding strategy, leads to different levels of default risk between the two entry modes. This finding suggests that the entry mode has an indirect effect on the increasing vulnerabilities of foreign banks, with the effect occurring through the funding strategy. Moreover, we confirm the existence of a close link between the mode of foreign entry and bank risk, even when controlling for funding strategy. We interpret this as evidence of a direct effect of entry mode on the risk of foreign banks in the host country, independent of funding structure.

Financing drug discovery via dynamic leverage

We extend the megafund concept for funding drug discovery to enable dynamic leverage in which the portfolio of candidate therapeutic assets is predominantly financed initially by equity, and debt is introduced gradually as assets mature and begin generating cash flows. Leverage is adjusted so as to maintain an approximately constant level of default risk throughout the life of the fund. Numerical simulations show that applying dynamic leverage to a small portfolio of orphan drug candidates can boost the return on equity almost twofold compared with securitization with a static capital structure. Dynamic leverage can also add significant value to comparable all-equity-financed portfolios, enhancing the return on equity without jeopardizing debt performance or increasing risk to equity investors.

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions and default risk

We examine the impact of cross-border mergers on acquirers' post-merger default risk using a sample of 375 US acquiring firms from 1997 to 2011. After controlling for cultural, institutional, geographic and managerial factors between the US and target firm countries, we find that on average, cross-border transactions decrease the level of default risk of the acquiring firms. Our results are consistent with the asymmetric information hypothesis that managers take advantage of the overvaluation and volatility of their stock prices. We also observe that the geographic distance and industrial relatedness play significant roles in affecting post-merger default risk but find limited evidence indicating the relevance of institutional environments and cultural factors on changes in default risk. Managers use cross-border mergers to manage the extant risk of their firms. However, their incentives to use cross-border mergers to manage risk are mitigated by option compensation.

Default Risk of Life Annuity and the Annuity Puzzle

This paper considers a model of optimal consumption and portfolio choice of the retired person who has partially annuitized her wealth and faces default risk of her annuity provider. We develop a new method for solving the optimal consumption and portfolio choice problem in an incomplete financial market. We find that the effects of default risk on the retiree's optimal investment strategies and annuity demand depend crucially on the level of default risk, risk aversion, wealth, and investment opportunity. Higher default risk may lead retired people to increase their stock holdings. Lower default risk can substantially increase the demand for annuities. The annuity demand increases as risk aversion increases if default risk is small, whereas the annuity demand decreases as risk aversion increases if default risk is large.