Exploring the main factors that determine bond spreads with respect to Treasury rates is one of the most critical issues in the corporate debt market. Credit risk has long been perceived as the most important determinant of bond spreads (Fisher, 1959). One of the most critical parameters in credit risk models is asset volatility, which includes idiosyncratic and systematic components. However, these models do not distinguish between them. Chapter 2 investigates the impact of idiosyncratic volatility on bond portfolio spreads between 2000 and 2010. While the prediction of traditional asset pricing models is that firm-specific risk should be diversified away at aggregate level, I find idiosyncratic volatility plays an incremental role in explaining bond portfolio spreads beyond the market factors. Recovery is an important measurement of credit risk additional to default probability. Chapter 3 focuses on the estimation of firm recovery after bankruptcy using the Leland and Toft (1996) model. Using a large sample of Chapter 11 filings from 1996 to 2007, I find that the recovery derived from the Leland and Toft model has strong explanatory power on the debt recovery observed in the market. Recent literature finds that all extant credit risk models significantly underestimate bond spreads, especially for investment grade bonds of short maturity. Chapter 4 identifies a heretofore ignored component, perceived accounting misstatement, by regressing bond spreads on the proxy of accounting misstatement propensity, while controlling for issuers’ default risk and bond illiquidity risk between January 1994 and June 2002. My thesis deepens the understanding of bond price discovery mechanisms and presents an important challenge for future research to incorporate the strong empirical relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and bond yields in asset pricing models. My thesis also sheds light on the accurate prediction of debt recovery, which is important to the valuation and hedging of risky debt and credit derivatives. Furthermore, my thesis assists in solving the credit spread puzzle by identifying a new risk factor. Overall, my thesis provides new insights into research on the corporate debt market and has important implications for academic scholars and market practitioners. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2013-05-01 07:43:17.718

This thesis investigates dynamics of determinants of government bond spreads in EMU and non-EMU countries, using non-linear Markov-switching method and Dynamic model averaging. Utilizing Dynamic model averaging we found evidence of three bond pricing regimes - pre-crisis, crisis and post Outright monetary transaction announcements. These three regimes are characteristic for all EMU countries (except Slovak Republic) and Czech Republic. Announcements of OMTs triggered post OMTs announcement regime also in Slovak republic. Third regime is not present in Poland, Hungary and United Kingdom. Moreover United Kingdom has only one regime and is dominated solely by market expectations. We found that there is heterogeneity in the determinants of bond spreads across all examined countries. Moreover we found that spreads are significantly related to market and economic sentiments. JEL Classification F12, F21, F23, H25, H71, H87 Keywords Bond yields, bond spreads, DMA Author's e-mail jan.popadak@fsv.cuni.cz Supervisor's e-mail jaromir.baxa@fsv.cuni.cz

yes / This paper investigates whether bond, issuer, industry and macro-specific variables account for the observed variation of credit spreads’ changes of global shipping bond issues before and after the onset of the subprime financial crisis. Results show that conclusions as to the significant variables of spreads depend significantly on whether two-way clusteradjusted standard errors are utilized, thus rendering results in the extant literature ambigious. The main determinants of global cargo-carrying companies’ shipping bond spreads are found in this paper to be: the liquidity of the bond issue, the stock market’s volatility, the bond market’s cyclicality, freight earnings and the credit rating of the bond issue.

Submitted by Flávia Coelho Branco Junqueira Ferraz (fla_ferraz@hotmail.com) on 2011-10-11T19:18:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Versao_Final_Flavia_Ferraz_2011_PDF.pdf: 402008 bytes, checksum: 1a3fe2225f59266cad2f3a3d5bfd1554 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vitor Souza (vitor.souza@fgv.br) on 2011-11-17T19:21:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Versao_Final_Flavia_Ferraz_2011_PDF.pdf: 402008 bytes, checksum: 1a3fe2225f59266cad2f3a3d5bfd1554 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-05-09T19:38:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Versao_Final_Flavia_Ferraz_2011_PDF.pdf: 402008 bytes, checksum: 1a3fe2225f59266cad2f3a3d5bfd1554 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-30 / O objetivo deste trabalho é estimar os efeitos da crise financeira recente sobre os spreads dos títulos soberanos dos países emergentes. Os resultados corroboram a visão de que a atual crise financeira teve um impacto significativo sobre a percepção de risco dos países emergentes, elevando o prêmio de risco. A taxa de crescimento da economia, a taxa de câmbio real, as reservas internacionais, as dívidas interna e externa e o VIX também afetaram significativamente os spreads soberanos. Por fim, mostramos que a percepção de risco do Brasil foi menos afetada pela crise que nos demais países emergentes. / This study aims to estimate the effects of the recent economic crisis on the sovereign bonds spreads of emerging countries. The results support the view that the current financial crisis had a significant impact on the perception of emerging country risk, raising their risk premium. The economic growth rate, real exchange rate, international reserves, domestic and foreign debt and VIX also significantly affected the sovereign spreads. In addition, we also demonstrate that the perception of the Brazilian risk was less affected by the crisis than the remaining emerging countries.