Accounting data and the credit spread: An empirical investigation

Amer Demirovic; Jon Tucker; Cherif Guermat

doi:10.1016/j.ribaf.2015.02.013

Accounting data and the credit spread: An empirical investigation

Amer Demirovic, Jon Tucker, Cherif Guermat

University of the West of England

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

139 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Measures of credit risk based on Merton (1974) rely upon information available in the market prices of securities. Under the Efficient Market Hypothesis market prices should reflect all available information and, hence, make redundant all other information in the analysis of credit risk. This paper examines whether accounting data are fully reflected in the market-based measures of credit risk and therefore has no role in explaining variations in the credit spread on corporate bonds. We use a sample consisting of over 11,000 firm-quarter observations with matched equity, bond and accounting data. The results suggest that equity volatility and Merton's distance-to-default outperform accounting variables in explaining variations in the credit spread. However, accounting variables are incrementally informative in explaining variations in the credit spread when considered in conjunction with market-based measures. Within the set of accounting variables considered, we find that the profitability ratio is by far the most incrementally informative accounting variable.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	233-250
Number of pages	18
Journal	Research in International Business and Finance
Volume	34
Early online date	12 Feb 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2015.02.013
Publication status	Published - 1 May 2015
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Research in International Business and Finance. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Research in International Business and Finance,VOL 34, (2015) DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2015.02.013

© 2017, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

Accounting data
Credit risk analysis
Credit spread
Distance-to-default
Value relevance

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous)
Finance

Access to Document

10.1016/j.ribaf.2015.02.013

Post-PrintAccepted author manuscript, 1.05 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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abstract = "Measures of credit risk based on Merton (1974) rely upon information available in the market prices of securities. Under the Efficient Market Hypothesis market prices should reflect all available information and, hence, make redundant all other information in the analysis of credit risk. This paper examines whether accounting data are fully reflected in the market-based measures of credit risk and therefore has no role in explaining variations in the credit spread on corporate bonds. We use a sample consisting of over 11,000 firm-quarter observations with matched equity, bond and accounting data. The results suggest that equity volatility and Merton's distance-to-default outperform accounting variables in explaining variations in the credit spread. However, accounting variables are incrementally informative in explaining variations in the credit spread when considered in conjunction with market-based measures. Within the set of accounting variables considered, we find that the profitability ratio is by far the most incrementally informative accounting variable.",

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N2 - Measures of credit risk based on Merton (1974) rely upon information available in the market prices of securities. Under the Efficient Market Hypothesis market prices should reflect all available information and, hence, make redundant all other information in the analysis of credit risk. This paper examines whether accounting data are fully reflected in the market-based measures of credit risk and therefore has no role in explaining variations in the credit spread on corporate bonds. We use a sample consisting of over 11,000 firm-quarter observations with matched equity, bond and accounting data. The results suggest that equity volatility and Merton's distance-to-default outperform accounting variables in explaining variations in the credit spread. However, accounting variables are incrementally informative in explaining variations in the credit spread when considered in conjunction with market-based measures. Within the set of accounting variables considered, we find that the profitability ratio is by far the most incrementally informative accounting variable.

AB - Measures of credit risk based on Merton (1974) rely upon information available in the market prices of securities. Under the Efficient Market Hypothesis market prices should reflect all available information and, hence, make redundant all other information in the analysis of credit risk. This paper examines whether accounting data are fully reflected in the market-based measures of credit risk and therefore has no role in explaining variations in the credit spread on corporate bonds. We use a sample consisting of over 11,000 firm-quarter observations with matched equity, bond and accounting data. The results suggest that equity volatility and Merton's distance-to-default outperform accounting variables in explaining variations in the credit spread. However, accounting variables are incrementally informative in explaining variations in the credit spread when considered in conjunction with market-based measures. Within the set of accounting variables considered, we find that the profitability ratio is by far the most incrementally informative accounting variable.

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Accounting data and the credit spread: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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