Sovereign Credit Risk and Exchange Rates: Evidence from CDS Quanto Spreads

73 Pages Posted: 24 Apr 2018 Last revised: 18 Jun 2023

See all articles by Patrick Augustin

Patrick Augustin

McGill University; McGill University, Desautels Faculty of Management

Mikhail Chernov

UCLA Anderson

Dongho Song

Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: April 2018

Abstract

Sovereign CDS quanto spreads—the difference between CDS premiums denominated in U.S. dollars and a foreign currency—tell us how financial markets view the interaction between a country's likelihood of default and associated currency devaluations (the Twin Ds). A noarbitrage model applied to the term structure of quanto spreads can isolate the interaction between the Twin Ds and gauge the associated risk premiums. We study countries in the Eurozone because their quanto spreads pertain to the same exchange rate and monetary policy, allowing us to link cross-sectional variation in their term structures to cross-country differences in fiscal policies. The ratio of the risk-adjusted to the true default intensities is 2, on average. Conditional on the occurrence of default, the true and risk-adjusted 1-week probabilities of devaluation are 5% and 77%, respectively. The risk premium for the euro devaluation in case of default exceeds the regular currency premium by up to 0.3% per week.

Suggested Citation

Augustin, Patrick and Augustin, Patrick and Chernov, Mikhail and Song, Dongho, Sovereign Credit Risk and Exchange Rates: Evidence from CDS Quanto Spreads (April 2018). NBER Working Paper No. w24506, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3163255

Patrick Augustin (Contact Author)

McGill University ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://https://patrickaugustin.ca/

McGill University, Desautels Faculty of Management ( email )

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Quebec
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G5
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://www.patrickaugustin.se

Mikhail Chernov

UCLA Anderson ( email )

110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States

Dongho Song

Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School ( email )

Baltimore, MD 20036-1984
United States

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