How Sovereign is Sovereign Credit Risk?

Francis Longstaff, Jun Pan, Lasse Pedersen and Kenneth Singleton

No 13658, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study the nature of sovereign credit risk using an extensive sample of CDS spreads for 26 developed and emerging-market countries. Sovereign credit spreads are surprisingly highly correlated, with just three principal components accounting for more than 50 percent of their variation. Sovereign credit spreads are generally more related to the U.S. stock and high-yield bond markets, global risk premia, and capital flows than they are to their own local economic measures. We find that the excess returns from investing in sovereign credit are largely compensation for bearing global risk, and that there is little or no country-specific credit risk premium. A significant amount of the variation in sovereign credit returns can be forecast using U.S. equity, volatility, and bond market risk premia.

JEL-codes: G12 G15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fmk and nep-rmg
Note: AP IFM
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

Published as Francis A. Longstaff & Jun Pan & Lasse H. Pedersen & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2011. "How Sovereign Is Sovereign Credit Risk?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 75-103, April.

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