TY - JOUR
T1 - Is the credit spread puzzle a myth?
AU - Bai, Jennie
AU - Goldstein, Robert S.
AU - Yang, Fan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/8
Y1 - 2020/8
N2 - We revisit Feldhütter and Schaefer (FS, 2018), who report evidence of a “credit spread puzzle” for high-yield but not investment-grade bonds. We show their results are reversed when their model is calibrated to market values of debt (as required by theory) rather than book values. We then demonstrate that using credit spreads rather than historical default rates to identify the default boundary provides the statistical power necessary to reject their assumption that firm dynamics follow geometric Brownian motion. A large market price of jump risk is required to match historical default rates, which generates a credit spread puzzle for investment-grade but not high-yield bonds.
AB - We revisit Feldhütter and Schaefer (FS, 2018), who report evidence of a “credit spread puzzle” for high-yield but not investment-grade bonds. We show their results are reversed when their model is calibrated to market values of debt (as required by theory) rather than book values. We then demonstrate that using credit spreads rather than historical default rates to identify the default boundary provides the statistical power necessary to reject their assumption that firm dynamics follow geometric Brownian motion. A large market price of jump risk is required to match historical default rates, which generates a credit spread puzzle for investment-grade but not high-yield bonds.
KW - Credit spread puzzle
KW - Structural models
KW - Tail risk
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jfineco.2020.02.009
DO - 10.1016/j.jfineco.2020.02.009
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85081239635
SN - 0304-405X
VL - 137
SP - 297
EP - 319
JO - Journal of Financial Economics
JF - Journal of Financial Economics
IS - 2
ER -