Emerging Markets Sovereign CDS Spreads During COVID-19: Economics versus Epidemiology News /
Daehler, Timo.
Emerging Markets Sovereign CDS Spreads During COVID-19: Economics versus Epidemiology News / Timo Daehler, Joshua Aizenman, Yothin Jinjarak. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w27903 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27903. .
October 2020.
Can bad news about COVID-19 induce negative expectations on sovereign credit risks? We investigate the factors driving credit default swap (CDS) spreads of emerging market sovereigns around the outbreak of COVID-19. Using 2014-2019 data, we estimate a two-factor model of global and regional risks and then extrapolate the model-implied spreads for the period July 2019-June 2020. Intriguingly, the model initially predicts the realized spreads well but loses predictive accuracy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fiscal space and oil-revenue dependence primarily drive the differences between the realized and predicted sovereign spreads. Our augmented-factor model indicates that the cumulative COVID-19 mortality rate growth is positively associated with the CDS spreads. The evidence suggests that the epidemiological deterioration can lower confidence in the sovereign credit markets due to the prospects of prolonged lockdowns and a slower GDP growth recovery. Our results also hold for a single regression of daily spread changes during 2014-2020.
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Emerging Markets Sovereign CDS Spreads During COVID-19: Economics versus Epidemiology News / Timo Daehler, Joshua Aizenman, Yothin Jinjarak. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w27903 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27903. .
October 2020.
Can bad news about COVID-19 induce negative expectations on sovereign credit risks? We investigate the factors driving credit default swap (CDS) spreads of emerging market sovereigns around the outbreak of COVID-19. Using 2014-2019 data, we estimate a two-factor model of global and regional risks and then extrapolate the model-implied spreads for the period July 2019-June 2020. Intriguingly, the model initially predicts the realized spreads well but loses predictive accuracy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fiscal space and oil-revenue dependence primarily drive the differences between the realized and predicted sovereign spreads. Our augmented-factor model indicates that the cumulative COVID-19 mortality rate growth is positively associated with the CDS spreads. The evidence suggests that the epidemiological deterioration can lower confidence in the sovereign credit markets due to the prospects of prolonged lockdowns and a slower GDP growth recovery. Our results also hold for a single regression of daily spread changes during 2014-2020.
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.