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Daily returns of the European corporate bond market are predicted using a penalized Lasso regression or Random forests. Predictions are utilized in investment strategies that allocate resources into risky position: interest-rate hedged corporate bonds or unhedged corporate bonds and risk-free position proxied by the Euro-Bobl futures that track the German government bonds. The strategies are more profitable with a lower risk than their passive alternatives, which only invest in corporate bonds (hedged or unhedged), but the daily rebalancing can be costly. Therefore, we examine the break-even transaction costs and suggest two approaches to lower the overall costs. Overall, even with costs, active strategies based on prediction can achieve higher returns with a lower risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses interest rate sensitivity of emerging market corporate debt. Previous research suggests that interest rate sensitivity of corporate bonds depends on residual maturity of issues, creditworthiness of issuers, embedded options and other idiosyncratic factors. However, the dependence of interest rate sensitivity on phases of the business cycle has not received an appropriate academic attention. This paper provides empirical evidence and theoretical interpretation of a dichotomy of interest rate sensitivity across the phases of the cycle, and sheds light on how credit spreads respond to interest rates. The historical span of the research covers the period of 2004–2016. The findings imply that hedging interest rate risk ought to be a dynamic process and take into consideration where the economy is positioned in the current business cycle. This research provides important insights on the nature of interest rate sensitivity, capable of enhancing financial stability and improving efficiency of financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper selects weekly transaction data from the Shenzhen Exchange and Shanghai Exchange for 2012 to 2018 to investigate factors including corporate size, the ration of book-to-market, default risk, term and credit rating that influence the corporate bond spread. It can be concluded that small firms prefer to issue high yield spread bonds while large firms issue bonds with low yield spreads. High (low) book-to-market firms issue high (low) yield spread bonds. The most important factors influencing corporate bond spread yield are default risk, terms, and credit ratings. We suggest that China Securities Regulatory Commission should encourage small firms to issue corporate bonds and there should be more kinds of credit ratings bonds in China bond market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of multidimension liquidity, credit risk, and the interaction between liquidity and credit risk on corporate bond spreads based on a large transaction data set from July, 2006 to June, 2016, including the monthly data of 3716 bonds in China. Our main findings reveal that liquidity premiums are the main parts of corporate bond spreads. The interaction between liquidity and credit risk plays a significant role in determining corporate bond spreads. In addition, the differences between the interbank market and the exchange market have a significant impact on corporate bond spreads in normal period, and the interaction between liquidity and credit risk has an enhanced impact on corporate bond spreads during financial crisis. We also find that the interaction between liquidity and credit risk will increase with the increase of liquidity risk and credit risk and it is a time-varying dynamic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of green financing in propelling corporate green transformation and sustainable growth has attracted a lot of interest. Regarding their function in promoting corporate green transformation, green bonds—a crucial part of green finance—pose an important research question. This study, targeting Chinese A-share listed corporates, employing double machine learning models, aims to delve into the impact and mechanisms of green bond issuance on corporate green transformation. The findings indicate that issuing green bonds significantly drives corporate green transformation, especially in state-owned, smaller-scale, and non-manufacturing firms, where the impact is more evident. Further analysis discloses that green bond issuance primarily facilitates corporate green transformation through its functions in green investment and financing, green regulatory compliance, and green governance. This study serves as a theoretical reference, guiding businesses in seizing emerging opportunities in the green bond market and actively undertaking green transformation projects, thereby catalyzing a comprehensive economic transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the factors impacting the price difference between the interbank market and the exchange market for the same bond using a large transaction dataset from July 2006 to June 2016 in China. We find that market liquidity and macrofactors mainly affect the price difference between the two markets for the same bond. And individual bond liquidity explains only a small part of the price difference. We also find that the interaction between liquidity and credit risk is an important factor affecting the price difference, and the effect is greater during financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a generalized bond pricing model, accounting for all the effects of credit risk, liquidity risk, and their correlation. We use an informed trading model to specify the bond liquidity payoff and analyze the sources of liquidity risk. We show that liquidity risk arises from reduced information accuracy and market risk tolerance, and it is market risk tolerance that links credit and liquidity. Then, we extend the traditional bond pricing model with only credit risk by incorporating liquidity risk into the framework in which the probabilities of the two risk events are estimated by a joint distribution. Using numerical examples, we analyze the role of the correlation between credit and liquidity in bond pricing, especially during a financial crisis. We document that the varying correlation between default and illiquidity explains the phenomenon of bond death spiral observed in a financial crisis. Finally, we take the US corporate bond market as an example to demonstrate our conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on liquidity risk of corporate bond, and it collects panel data from 2014 to 2018 in Corporate bond Exchange center in China. It measures liquidity by issued amount, trading turnover, squared price return, volume and bond age. In the regression Squared price return is significant, and the squared price return could indicate to what extent the bond is underpriced. At the same time, corporate bond trading volumes increase, but liquidity risk premium decreases, so the corporate bond spread decreases. Also, the large issued amount indicates high liquidity. In the paper, it finds that the threshold of 12 months is the best in corporate bond market in Exchange in China, and the liquidity risk premium which presented by age is a very important part in corporate bond spread. The results above are consistent with the hypotheses. But in the regression, the variable of corporate bond trades is positively correlated with corporate bond spread, and it’s different from the null hypothesis. It infers that there’re several reasons, maybe too much missing data in the sample or the samples are in an economic crisis period. Overall, issued amount, squared price return, volume and trading turnover are proxies of liquidity risk, however they are less important than bond age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of recovery rates of corporate defaulted bonds in the emerging markets. We use data on defaulted bonds from Moody's ultimate recovery database over the period 2005–2015 to experiment the impact of the borrower characteristics added to the macroeconomic and the bond market conditions on recovery rates. We find evidence that bond recovery rates in emerging and developed countries do not depend on the same factors. Our results show that bond recovery rates in developing countries seem to depend much more on specific characteristics of firms. The financial crisis has affected more significantly subordinated bond recovery rates than secured bonds in emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PCA has been widely used in many fields to detect dominant principle components, but it ignores the information embedded in the remaining components. As a supplement to PCA, we propose the General Component Analysis (GCA). The inverse participation ratios (IPRs) are used to identify the global components (GCs) and localized components (LCs). The mean values of the IPRs derived from the shuffled data are taken as the natural threshold, which is exquisite and novel. In this paper, the Chinese corporate bond market is analyzed as an example. We propose a novel network method to divide time periods based on micro data, which performs better in capturing the time points when the market state switches. As a result, two periods have been obtained. There are two GCs in both periods, which are influenced by terms to maturity and ratings. Besides, there are 382 LCs in Period 1 and 166 LCs in Period 2. In the LC portfolios there are two interesting bond collections which are helpful to understand the thoughts of the investors. One is the supper AAA bond collection which is believed to have implicit governmental guarantees by the investors, and the other is the overcapacity industrial bond collection which is influenced by the supply-side reform led by the Chinese government. GCA is expected to be applied to other complex systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fat-tail financial data and cyclical financial market makes it difficult for the fixed structure model based on Gaussian distribution to characterize the dynamics of corporate bonds spreads. Using a flexible structure model based on generalized error distribution, this paper focuses on the impact of macro-level factors on the spreads of corporate bonds in China. It is found that in China's corporate bonds market, macroeconomic conditions have obvious structural transformational effects on bonds spreads, and their structural features remain stable with the downgrade of bonds ratings. The impact of macroeconomic conditions on spreads is significant for different structures, and the differences between the structures increase as ratings decline. For different structures, the persistent characteristics of bonds spreads are obviously stronger than those of recursive ones, which suggest an obvious speculation in bonds market. It is also found that the structure switching of bonds with different ratings is not synchronous, which indicates the shift of investment between different grades of bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the pricing implications of green bonds in the Chinese corporate bond market. We document a large greenium in the Chinese green bond market, whereby green bonds are issued at lower offering yield spreads in the primary market and traded at lower yields in the secondary market. The magnitude of the Chinese greenium is substantially greater than other international green bond markets. Exploring the underlying mechanisms, we document convincing evidence that mitigation of information asymmetry and exposure to salient environmental stimuli such as air pollution are plausible explanations of the greenium. • Green certification has pricing implications in the Chinese corporate bond market. • This study documents a greenium in the Chinese bond market. • Green bonds are issued at lower offering yield spreads in the primary market. • Green bonds are traded at lower yields in the secondary market. • The Chinese greenium is greater than other international green bond markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between exposure to climate change and firm credit risk. We show that the distance-to-default, a widely used market-based measure of corporate default risk, is negatively associated with the amount of a firm's carbon emissions and carbon intensity. Therefore, companies with high carbon footprint are perceived by the market as more likely to default, ceteris paribus. The carbon footprint decreases the distance-to-default following shocks - such as the Paris Agreement - that reveal policymakers' intention to implement stricter climate policies. Overall, these results indicate that the exposure to climate risks affects the creditworthiness of loans and bonds issued by corporates. Financial regulators and policymakers should consider carefully the impact of climate change risks on the stability of both lending intermediaries and corporate bond markets. • We study the relationship between exposure to climate change and credit risk. • Corporate default risk is positively associated with carbon footprint. • The positive relationship is stronger following the Paris Agreement. • Climate risks threaten stability of lending intermediaries and bond markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]