Cross-Country Differences in Monetary Policy Execution and Money Market Rates' Volatility

The volatility patterns of overnight interest rates differ across industrial countries in ways that existing models, designed to replicate the features of the U.S. federal funds market, cannot explain. This paper presents an equilibrium model of the overnight interbank market that matches these different patterns by incorporating differences in policy execution by the world's main central banks, including differences in central banks' management of marginal lending and deposit facilities in response to shocks. Our model is consistent with central banks' observed practice of rationing access to marginal facilities when the objective of stabilizing short-term interest rates conflicts with another high-frequency objective, such as the targeting of exchange rates

Pricing defaultable bonds: a middle-way approach between structural and reduced-form models

In this paper we present a valuation model that combines features of both the structural and reduced-form approaches for modelling default risk. We maintain the cause and effect or 'structural' definition of default and assume that default is triggered when a state variable reaches a default boundary. However, in our model, the state variable is not interpreted as the assets of the firm, but as a latent variable signalling the credit quality of the firm. Default in our model can also occur according to a doubly stochastic hazard rate. The hazard rate is a linear function of the state variable and the interest rate. We use the Cox et al. (A theory of the term structure of interest rates. Econometrica, 1985, 53(2), 385-407) term structure model to preclude the possibility of negative probabilities of default. We also horse race the proposed valuation model against structural and reduced-form default risky bond pricing models and find that term structures of credit spreads generated using the middle-way approach are more in line with empirical observations.Stochastic term structure, Defaultable bond, Credit spread, Probability of default, Hazard rate,

The Credit Rating Crisis and the Informational Content of Corporate Credit Ratings

There has been much scrutiny of the Credit Rating Agencies ’ (CRAs) flawed ratings of structured products in the build-up to the financial crisis. Our study examines whether the ‘credit rating crisis ’ altered the information effects of their traditional product, corporate bond ratings. Using an event study, we analyze the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market’s response to rating announcements by Moody’s between September 2004 and December 2009. Our results demonstrate that CDS price effects were considerably greater in the pre-crisis era, and document a possible spillover effect of reputational damage onto the bond rating services of the CRAs