Credit Risk

Credit risk is the risk that the counterparty could not make the timely interest payment and the principle repayment. It is one of the major risks concerned by the financial institutions. A lot of research has been done in the academical and the practitional area. Recent major focus is on the quantitative measurement of credit risk, and on the credit derivatives. Here is some information about credit risk. I will add some more later on. Suggestions and helps are very welcome.

General Information

The "New" Science of Credit Risk Management at Financial Institutions By Janet L. Yellen. Credit risk management from a supervisor's view.

Credit Risk Management And Credit Portfolio Review An annual report about their crdit risk management activities from Nationsbank. Get some basic idea!

Credit Derivatives: New Financial Instruments for Controlling Credit Risk By Robert S. Neal. it provides information on the rationale and use of credit derivatives.

Books and Journals

Credit Scoring and Credit Control: Based on the Proceedings of a Conference on Credit Scoring and Credit Control, by L.C. Thomas, J.N. Crook, D.B. Edelman (Editor)

The Handbook of Risk Management and Analysis: by Carol Alexander, 1992, Clarendon Pr Publication. There is a chapter on credit enhancement.

Bank Management; by Shanmugam B, Turton C and Hempel G, 1992, John Wiley and Sons, Milton Qld.

The Journals: Besides the academic journals like Jornal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Financial Studies, I personally recommend the following jounrals:

Jounrnal of Derivatives
Journal of Futures
Journal of Portfolio Management
Journal of Banking and Finance
Journal of Landing and Credit Risk Management
Credit and Financial Management
Risk

Another very good source for financial risk management on the web is Net Exposure. Check it out!

Organizations

National Association of Credit Management

Canadian Credit Risk Management Association

The Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) a nonprofit, independent organization of financial risk management practitioners and researchers.

Moody's Investor Service A rating agency

Standard &Poor's Rating Service

Software and commercial products

CreditMetrics Lauched by JP Morgan in April 1997, this is the first readily available portfolio model for evaluating credit risk. It calculates the VAR due to credit caused by upgrades, downgrades, and defaults. it claims to establish a benchmark for the credit risk management.

CREDITRISK+ A Credit Suisse financial product, available in November 1997. I checked it and found that the basic principle is similar to Creditmetrics, but there are some changes:
1.it assumes the default variables continous and get the distribution form.
2.Besides VAR, it also calculates the stress testing.
3.it models the correlation through default rate volatilities and sector analysis.

CreditMetrics and CreditRisk+ will provide us some very good tools to measure and manage credit risk, and will accelerate the research. But cautions must be always kept. Here is from the Creditmetrics:

"Creditmetics is intended to complement other , more traditional forms of credit
analysis that are integral to an institution's credit underwriting and monitoring 
standards. In particular, there is no substition for the sound credit analysis, and 
CreditMetrics methodology does not obviate this need. ..."

Other products and some links to the credit risk consulting firms will be added later.

Important Literature

I will add some important literature in credit risk management later on.

This site is still under construction. More links will be added later. If you know some related good sites, please let me know! Thanks in advance.

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Yi-Jun Wang/ Fuqua School of Business/ Duke University/ Durham, NC 27708/ [email protected]/ revised November'97