Issuer Quality and the Credit Cycle

Robin Greenwood and Samuel Hanson

No 17197, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We show that the credit quality of corporate debt issuers deteriorates during credit booms, and that this deterioration forecasts low excess returns to corporate bondholders. The key insight is that changes in the pricing of credit risk disproportionately affect the financing costs faced by low quality firms, so the debt issuance of low quality firms is particularly useful for forecasting bond returns. We show that a significant decline in issuer quality is a more reliable signal of credit market overheating than rapid aggregate credit growth. We use these findings to investigate the forces driving time-variation in expected corporate bond returns.

JEL-codes: E32 E51 G12 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-07
Note: AP CF ME
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Greenwood, Robin, and Samuel G. Hanson. "Issuer Quality and Corporate Bond Returns." Review of Financial Studies 26, no. 6 (June 2013): 1483–1525.

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