The purpose of this article is to explain the spread between spot rates on corporate and government bonds. We find that the spread can be explained in terms of three elements: (1) compensation for expected default of corporate bonds (2) compensation for state taxes since holders of corporate bonds pay state taxes while holders of government bonds do not, and (3) compensation for the additional systematic risk in corporate bond returns relative to government bond returns. The systematic nature of corporate bond return is shown by relating that part of the spread which is not due to expected default or taxes to a set of variables which have been shown to effect risk premiums in stock markets Empirical estimates of the size of each of these three components are provided in the paper. We stress the tax effects because it has been ignored in all previous studies of corporate bonds. 1

Abstract: We study the implications of imperfect information for term structures of credit spreads on corporate bonds. We suppose that bond investors cannot observe the issuer’s assets directly, and receive instead only periodic and imperfect accounting reports. For a setting in which the assets of the firm are a geometric Brownian motion until informed equityholders optimally liquidate, we derive the conditional distribution of the assets, given accounting data and survivorship. Contrary to the perfect-information case, there exists a default-arrival intensity process. That intensity is calculated in terms of the conditional distribution of assets. Credit yield spreads are characterized in terms of accounting information. Generalizations are provided. 1 We are exceptionally grateful to Michael Harrison for his significant contributions to this paper, which are noted within. We are also grateful for insightful research assistance

Many theoretical bond pricing models predict that the credit yield curve facing risky bond issuers is downward-sloping. Previous empirical research ~Sarig and Warga ~1989!, Fons ~1994!! supports these models. Our study examines sets of bonds issued by the same firm with equal priority in the liability structure, but with different maturities, thus holding credit quality constant. We find, counter to prior research, that risky bonds typically have upward-sloping credit yield curves. Moreover, when we combine our matched sets of bonds ~no longer controlling credit quality!, the estimated slope is negative, indicating a sample selection bias problem associated with maturity. USING OPTION ANALYSIS, Merton ~1974! shows that corporate bond spreads can either increase or decrease with maturity, depending on the risk of the firm: High-grade corporate issuers face upward-sloping credit yield curves and speculative-grade firms ’ credit yield curves are downward-sloping or humpshaped ~i.e., mostly downward-sloping!. More recent theoretical research ~e.g.,

Various probabilistic techniques, which are used in the modeling of derivative securities (in particular, zero-coupon bonds) that are subject to default risk are presented in a systematic way.

The purpose of this article is to explain the spread between rates on corporate and government bonds. We show that expected default accounts for a surprisingly small fraction of the premium in corporate rates over treasuries. While state taxes explain a substantial portion of the difference, the remaining portion of the spread is closely related to the factors that we commonly accept as explaining risk premiums for common stocks. Both our time series and cross-sectional tests support the existence of a risk premium on corporate bonds. THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE is to examine and explain the differences in the rates offered on corporate bonds and those offered on government bonds ~spreads!, and, in particular, to examine whether there is a risk premium in corporate bond spreads and, if so, why it exists. Spreads in rates between corporate and government bonds differ across rating classes and should be positive for each rating class for the following reasons: 1. Expected default loss—some corporate bonds will default and investors require a higher promised payment to compensate for the expected loss from defaults. 2. Tax premium—interest payments on corporate bonds are taxed at the state level whereas interest payments on government bonds are not. 3. Risk premium—The return on corporate bonds is riskier than the return on government bonds, and investors should require a premium for the higher risk. As we will show, this occurs because a large part of the risk on corporate bonds is systematic rather than diversifiable. The only controversial part of the above analyses is the third point. Some authors in their analyses assume that the risk premium is zero in the corporate bond market. 1

We investigate the term structure of credit spreads and credit default swaps for different rating categories. It is well-known quite that for issuers with lower credit quality higher spreads can be observed in the market and vice versa. However, empirical results on spreads for bonds with the same rating but different maturities are rather controversial. We provide empirical results on the term structure of credit spreads based on a large sample of Eurobonds and domestic bonds from EWU–countries. Further we investigate maturity effects on credit default swaps and compare the results to those of corporate bonds. We find that for both instruments a positive relationship between maturity and spreads could be observed for investment grade debt. For speculative grade debt the results are rather ambiguous. We also find that spreads for the same rating class and same maturity exhibit very high variation.

Knowing the relative riskiness of di erent types of credit exposure is important for policymakers designing regulatory capital requirements and for rms allocating economic capital. This paper analyzes the risk structure of credit exposures with di erent maturities and credit qualities. We focus particularly on risks associated with (i) ratings transitions and (ii) spread changes for given ratings. We show that, for high quality debt, most risk stems from spread changes. This is signi cant because several recently proposed pricing and credit risk models assume zero spread risk.

In recent years there have been a number of papers examining the pricing of corporate debt. These papers have varied from theoretical analysis of the pricing of risky debt using option pricing theory, to a simple reporting of the default experience of various categories of risky debt. The vast majority of the articles dealing with corporate spreads have examined yield differentials of interestpaying

Models of credit valuation generally predict a hump-shaped spread term structure for low quality issuers. This is understood to be driven by the shape of the underlying conditional default probabilities curve. We show that (a) recovery assumptions and (b) deviation of bond’s price from par can also drive different term structure shapes. Our analysis resolves conflicting empirical evidence on the shape of speculative grade spread curves and explains the related existing theoretical results. On examining a large set of speculative grade bonds and credit default swaps, we find evidence that par-spread term structures are likely to be downward sloping as credit quality deteriorates sufficiently. This paper has benefited from numerous discussions with researchers working in the area