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Working Paper
Asymmetric Cross-sectional Dispersion in Stock Returns: Evidence and Implications
This paper documents that daily stock returns of both firms and industries are more dispersed when the overall stock market rises than when it falls. This positive relation is conceptually distinct from – and appears unrelated to – asymmetric return correlations. I argue that the source of the relation is positive skewness in sector-specific return shocks. I use this asymmetric behavior to explain a previously-observed puzzle: aggregate trading volume tends to be higher on days when the stock market rises than when it falls. The idea proposed here is that trading is more active on days ...
Working Paper
Credit derivatives in banking: useful tools for managing risk?
We model the effects on banks of the introduction of a market for credit derivatives--in particular, credit default swaps. A bank can use such swaps to temporarily transfer credit risks of their loans to others, reducing the likelihood that defaulting loans would trigger the bank's financial distress. Because credit derivatives are more flexible at transferring risks than are other, more established tools, such as loan sales without recourse, these instruments make it easier for banks to circumvent the ``lemons'' problem caused by banks' superior information about the credit quality of their ...
Working Paper
On measuring credit risks of derivative instruments
Working Paper
Trading volume and return reversals
This paper tests whether the magnitude of the serial correlation of monthly stock returns varies with trading volume. In both the 1915-1945 and 1946-1989 periods, it finds a statistically significant relationship between NYSE volume shocks and return reversals. The point estimates suggest that if month "t" has a one-standard-deviations shock to trading volume, an additional 40 to 50 percent of month t's stock return is eventually reversed. Additional results indicate that the volume shocks are not just a proxy for previously known predictors of aggregate stock returns such as the ...
Working Paper
Estimating the price of default risk
A firm's instantaneous probability of default is modeled as a square-root diffusion process. The parameters of these processes are estimated for 188 firms, using both the time series and cross-sectional (term structure) properties of the individual firms' bond prices. Although the estimated models are moderately successful at bond pricing, there is strong evidence of misspecification. The results indicate that single factor models of instantaneous default risk face a significant challenge in matching certain key features of actual corporate bond yield spreads. In particular, such models have ...
Working Paper
Treasury yields and corporate bond yield spreads: an empirical analysis
This paper empirically examines the relation between the Treasury term structure and spreads of investment grade corporate bond yields over Treasuries. I find that noncallable bond yield spreads fall when the level of the Treasury term structure rises. The extent of this decline depends on the initial credit quality of the bond; the decline is small for Aaa-rated bonds and large for Baa-rated bonds. The role of the business cycle in generating this pattern is explored, as is the link between yield spreads and default risk. I also argue that yield spreads based on commonly-used bond yield ...
Working Paper
Idiosyncratic variation of Treasury bill yields