An important part when managing credit risk is to assess the probability of default of different counterparties. Increases and decreases in such probabil- ities are central components in the assessment, and this is where transition matrices become useful. These matrices are commonly used tools when as- sessing counterparty credit risk, and contain the probability of default, as well as the probability to migrate between different predefined rating classifica- tions. These rating classifications are used to reflect the risk taken towards different counterparties. Therefore, it is important for financial institutions to develop accurate transition matrix models to manage predicted changes in credit risk exposure. This is because counterparty creditworthiness and prob- ability of default indirectly affect expected loss and the capital requirement of held capital. This thesis will analyze how two specific models perform when used for generating transition matrices. These models will be tested to investigate their performance when predicting rating transitions, including probability of default. / En viktig del vid hanteringen av kreditrisk är att bedöma sannolikheten för fallissemang för olika motparter. Ökningar och minskningar i dessa sanno- likheter är centrala komponenter i bedömningen, och det är här migrations- matriser blir användbara. Dessa matriser är vanligt förekommande verktyg vid bedömning av kreditrisk mot olika motparter och innehåller sannolikheten för fallissemang samt sannolikheten att migrera mellan olika fördefinierade be- tygsklassificeringar. Dessa betygsklassificeringar används för att återspegla den risk som tas mot olika motparter. Det är därför viktigt för finansinstitut att utveckla träffsäkra migrationsmatris modeller för att hantera förväntade förändringar i kreditriskexponering. Detta beror på att kreditvärdigheten hos motparter samt sannolikheten för fallissemang indirekt påverkar expected loss och kapitalkrav. Detta examensarbete kommer att analysera hur två specifika modeller presterar när de används för att generera migrationsmatriser. Dessa mod- eller kommer att testas för att undersöka hur de presterar när de används för att förutsäga övergångar inom betygsklassificering, inklusive sannolikheten för fallissemang.

Credit risk tracking and quantification play important roles in risk management and they are not applied only by financial institutions on microeconomic level, but also by central banks on the background of aggregated data. This master thesis deals with the analyses of shocks of given significant macroeconomic variables and their reply on changes of households' and firms' defaulted, non performing loans in Slovakian banking sector. In introductory part, the method of data handling is described, because of their inconsistency in the given field of research. That is caused on one hand by the post-transformational consolidation process of Slovakian banking sector and on the other hand by legislative shifts and changes in calculation methodology of non performing loans. The main aim of the thesis is not to describe and interpret most precisely the economic relations that could influence the level of non performing loans, but the effort to widen the range of credit risk stress testing possibilities in Slovakian banking sector. In order to check the macroeconomic variables' significance, OLS regression is used. Important part of the stress tests is the application of Monte Carlo method which simulates high number of stress scenarios and macroeconomic variables' shocks and therefore helps to improve the...

This thesis consists of one hedge fund study and two credit default swap (CDS) studies. The first study investigates the relationship between mega hedge funds (the largest 25% of funds) and two bond yields (U.S. Treasury yield and Baa yield). Using a merged sample of 9,725 hedge funds from 1994 to 2012, I find that hedge fund outflow produced a more significant relationship than inflow, and the dollar outflow of large hedge funds can predict the increase in the bond yields. The association is also more pronounced for large funds with a short notice period prior to redemption. The results suggest that hedge fund flows provide predictive information for the movement of bond yields. The second study investigates the systematic and firm-specific credit and liquidity risks of CDS spreads. Using data on CDS spreads of 356 U.S. firms from 2002 to 2011, I find that systematic credit and liquidity risks are important in cross-sectional prediction of CDS spreads. In addition, the importance of systematic liquidity risk becomes substantial since the financial crisis in 2007. This finding challenges the current Basel III procedures for counterparty credit risk regulations, in which only pure default should be used. In addition, the systematic credit and liquidity factors can be used as a proxy for CDS spreads of firms that do not have traded CDSs. The last study extends Carr and Wu (2010), in which deep out-of-the-money (DOOM) put options and CDSs are associated as they both provide credit insurance for credit protection buyers. Using the Nelson-Siegel (1987) model, I obtain the credit and illiquidity components for DOOMs and CDSs over the period from May 2002 to May 2012. I show that, after controlling the factors that explain the difference between the DOOM and CDS markets, the components converge over time in these two markets. Thus, I can exploit the observed convergence pattern by constructing a simple trading strategy, and this benchmark strategy produces a positive return. I further construct two other strategies based on the component information, and these two refined strategies outperform the benchmark strategy by the Sharpe ratio and Carhart alpha. My three studies contribute to the literature in hedge fund systemic risk and CDS credit and liquidity risks.

Comment la réglementation internationale organise-t-elle la régulation des activités de crédit ? Pour répondre à cette question, cette thèse propose d’analyser le dispositif prudentiel relatif aux risques de crédit issu de la réforme des Accords de Bâle de 2004, dits « Accords de Bâle II », et de suivre ce dispositif des lieux institutionnels de sa production – le Comité de Bâle – à son interprétation dans les pratiques quotidiennes d’une banque. La thèse décrit la communauté transnationale et le projet libéral qui ont initié le processus de réforme des Accords de Bâle. Puis, elle analyse le dispositif réglementaire lui-même et montre qu’il marque un basculement vers un mode de gouvernement néolibéral qui est couplé avec un projet de financiarisation des activés de crédit. Enfin, la thèse étudie la manière dont le nouveau dispositif réglementaire a été mise en œuvre dans une banque mutualiste française spécialisée dans le financement des PME et conclut que la nouvelle réglementation participe activement au désencastrement et à la financiarisation des relations de crédit. / How does international regulation organize credit activities ? In order to address this question, this thesis analyzes the regulatory standards for assessing and controlling credit risks defined by the 2004 reform of the Basel Agreements on Capital Adequacy, the so-called Basel II Agreements, and it traces the genealogy of these standards from where and when they have been constructed – in the Basel Committee from 1998 to 2004 – down to their effects on the daily practices of a bank. The thesis describes the transnational community and the liberal project that launched the Basel Agreements reform process. Then it analyzes the regulatory framework itself and suggests that Basel II marks a shift within the regulatory regime of credit risk. Indeed it demonstrates that the norms are embedded in a financialized representation of credits and that they are implemented following a neoliberal mode of government. Finally, the thesis investigates how the new norms have been translated into a french cooperative bank specialized in SME lending and it concludes that the new regulatory framework is actively participating in the disembeddedness and in the financialization of credit relationships.

Le déclenchement de la dette des Subprime en 2007, suivie de la crise de la dette Européenne en 2011, a attiré l'attention vers le risque de crédit, ses causes et ses implications. Depuis, Les décideurs des politiques économiques cherchent à trouver un moyen pour réguler les mouvements sur le marché des obligations et des dettes. Ainsi, sous l'impulsion du Conseil de stabilité financière, les accords de Bâle III sont apparus. Ce sont des réformes visant à renforcer le système financier afin d'affirmer la solidité financière des banques en imposant des conditions d'emprunt dont un niveau minimum de capitaux propres. Les travaux étudiant les risque de crédit avec ses différentes façades ont connu un boom. Il y a notamment la modélisation du risque de crédit qui s'est énormément développée. Cette thèse s'inscrit dans une branche macroéconomique à l'échelle Européenne. Nous essayons d'identifier les déterminants du risque de crédit aux niveaux souverains et bancaires et d'étudier les connections entre les deux. Dans une première partie, nous utilisons une modélisation Autoregressive à retards échelonnés1(ARDL) an de définir les déterminants macroéconomiques d'un échantillon de pays européens. Nous suggérons que le risque de crédit de ces derniers dépend largement des fondamentaux macroéconomiques avec des élasticités différentes selon la santé économique du pays. Plus précisément, nous trouvons que l'endettement a des effets opposés suivant le niveau du risque de crédit du pays. Dans la deuxième partie, nous nous intéressons aux déterminants du risque de crédit d'un échantillon de groupes bancaires Européens. Depuis 2007, Ces derniers ont été affectés par les deux crises (Subprime et la crise de la dette Européenne). Les relations de long terme dénies selon les tests de cointégration via l'approche des Bounds Tests 2, montrent qu'une dévaluation de l'Euro baisse le risque de crédit des banques étudiées en rendant leurs dettes libellées en Euro moins coûteuses. Aussi, notre analyse indique que la valeur de marché de l'entité ainsi que l'indice boursier dans lequel la banque est inscrite sont inconsistant dans l'explication du risque de crédit de cette dernière. Dans la dernière partie nous étudions les relations de causalité entre les risques de crédit des entités souveraines et bancaires étudiées dans les chapitres précédents. Les tests de causalité au sens de Granger révèlent que les relations trouvées sont asymétriques et dynamiques. Ces liens varient considérablement en fonction de l'état de l'économie de la région. L'analyse montre aussi que juste avant les période de grandes turbulences financières, notamment les crises financières, le transfert du risque de crédit est très important augmentant ainsi les contagions et par la suite le risque systémique. Cependant, la propagation de la méfiance et de la prudence pendant les périodes d'incertitude et des crises, fait baisser significativement le transfert du risque de crédit. Ceci s'accentue dans une zone monétaire comme la zone Euro puisque les pays adoptent forcément les mêmes politiques monétaires voire fiscales malgré leur hétérogénéité. / The outbreak of the Subprime debt in 2007, followed by the European debt crisis in 2011, drew attention to credit risk, its causes and implications. Since then, the economic policy makers are seeking to and a way to regulate the movementson the bond and debt market. Thus, the Basel III appeared under the guidance of the Financial Stability Board. These are reforms aiming at strengthening the financial system in order to assert the financial soundness of banks by imposingloan conditions and requirements including a minimum level of Capital. Works studying the credit risk with its diferent fronts boomed. Credit risk modeling has expanded tremendously. This thesis fits into a macroeconomic branchon a European scale. We try to identify the determinants of credit risk on the sovereign and banking levels and to study the connections between both. In the first section, Using Autoregressive Distributed Lag Modeling (ARDL), weempirically investigate the link between the macroeconomic fundamentals and sovereign credit risk for particular countries in the Euro zone. The studied sample was affected by disadvantageous economic conditions. We did not retain the same macroeconomic factors to explain the risk of default for the selected countries. The results, indicate that the reditworthiness of the studied entities depends largely on macroeconomic fundamentals with various elasticities which require a different economic policy for each country. The assessment of the results shows that the unemployment rate is the most influential variable especially for countries with disadvantageous economic conditions. The estimated relationships are globally stable in the long run (for 7 out of 9 countries), while the short run links are rare (except the unemployment rate). In the second section, we investigate the long-run relationships between European Banks' Credit default swap spreads and contextual factors using Bounds testing approach to cointegration (ARDL-ECM). The results reveal that in the long run, an increase of the inflation and/or the home countries' credit risk rise the European banks' credit risk as measured by credit default swap spreads. The estimatessuggest that the devaluation of the Euro, makes Euro-denominated debt less costly which lowers the credit risk of the European entities. Yet, unlike what is expected, our analysis shows that the market value of an entity as well as the stock index in which the firm is registered are becoming insignificant in explaining its credit risk. In this last section, we investigate the evolution and the expansion of the CDS network among the studied entities over the 2008 - 2013 period by splitting it intothree sub-periods. We highlight the variation of the connectedness according to the financial and economic characteristics of each studied sub-period. We found that the resulting relationships are not symmetrical and that they vary considerablydepending on the state of the region economy. We also show that just before huge financial turmoil phases, the risk transfer is very important increasing contagion and the systemic risk, while it drops significantly during uncertainty times marked by mistrust spread. This is particularly important in the European Union as countries adopt the same monetary policies while being heterogeneous.

This thesis takes up the issue of consumer loans credit risk. It aims to identify factors that influence the likelihood of default during the repayment of bank retail products. Theoretical part is focused on the theory of bank loans, credit risk together with its regulation within the Basel guidelines and a description of the most commonly used statistical methods for the creation of scoring models. In the practical part, logistic regression parameter estimates are used on real set, the main features linking loans in default are examined and their impact on the proportion of bad loans in the portfolio is measured.

The thesis covers a wide range of topics from the credit risk modeling with the emphasis put on pricing of the claims subject to the default risk. Starting with a separate general contingent claim pricing framework the key topics are classified into three fundamental parts: firm-value models, reduced-form models, portfolio problems, with a possible finer sub-classification. Every part provides a theoretical discussion, proposal of self-developed methodologies and related applications that are designed so as to be close to the real-world problems. The text also reveals several new findings from various fields of credit risk modeling. In particular, it is shown (i) that the stock option market is a good source of credit information, (ii) how the reduced-form modeling framework can be extended to capture more complicated problems, (iii) that the double t copula together with a self-developed portfolio modeling framework outperforms the classical Gaussian copula approaches. Many other, partial findings are presented in the relevant chapters and some other results are also discussed in the Appendix.

Thesis is providing an overview of available theoretical and practical piece of knowledge related to Credit risk management in a non-banking international organization. It focuses on international aspects of the business, underlying risk, its determination and mitigation. Described methods are then applied to real-life risk assessment of particular customer.

The aim of the present work is to describe the application of the logistic regression model to the field of probability of default modeling, and provide a brief introduction to the scoring development process used in financial practice. We start by introducing the theoretical background of the logistic regression model; followed by a consequent derivation of three most common scoring models. Then we present a formal definition of the Gini coefficient as a diversification power measure and derive the Somers-type formulas for its estimation. Finally, the key part of this work gives an overview of the whole scoring development process illustrated on the examples of real business data.

This thesis deals with the management of credit risk in the Czech banking sector. It consists of four separate chapters. The first three chapters provide a theoretical basis for important knowledge concerning the issue. The first chapter provides general background information about the bank, the importance of bank regulation and supervision, and all types of banking risks, with emphasis on credit risk. The second chapter deals with the system of credit risk management in banks, which includes the identification, quantification, monitoring and reducing of credit risk. The capital adequacy and rules for its determination under Basel II are contained in the third chapter. The last chapter provides an analysis of selected indicators of the Czech banking sector and assessment of credit risk management in the two largest Czech banks, on the basis of specific fair value of their annual reports.