The interaction between equity and credit risks

• Main Author: Demirovic, A.
• Published: University of the West of England, Bristol 2013
• Subjects: 332.7
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.582502

Equity and debt are two distinct classes of securities in terms of investing risks and potential return, but their value depends on the same underlying assets of the firm and therefore the risk-return tradeoff of each security should be systematically related. Following a review of the principal theoretical approaches to the measurement of equity and credit risks, this thesis utilizes a sample of matched firm-level equity and corporate bond data to examine three aspects of risk interaction. First, it investigates the importance of idiosyncratic and systematic equity risks in determining the credit spread on corporate bonds. Second, the thesis investigates how equity and credit risks themselves impact upon the correlation between equity and bond returns. Finally, the thesis examines whether the credit sensitive information contained within financial accounting data is fully reflected in equity prices. The empirical approach adopted in this thesis is to relate the credit spread and the conditional correlation between equity and bond returns with both equity and credit risk indicators and financial accounting variables. This methodological approach enables an extension of the existing literature on several dimensions, leading to a number of empirical results which have important theoretical and practical implications for the integrated management of equity and credit risks. Consistent with existing empirical studies, equity and credit risks are found to exert a positive impact upon the credit spread. Surprisingly, equity volatility is found to significantly outperform the distance to default in terms of explanatory power. Further, the impact of equity volatility increases monotonically as the distance to default narrows. The conditional correlation between equity and bond returns is found on average to be positive and to vary over time, peaking during the 2007 financial crisis. Finally, an increase in credit risk has a positive impact upon the correlation while an increase in equity risk is found to strengthen the correlation only if the firm’s credit risk is high.