The possible breakup of the Euro zone: Examining the differences between credit default swap fees nominated in Euro and US-Dollar during the Euro-Area crisis
- Autores: Hasan Doluca
- Localización: Journal of economic research, ISSN 1226-4261, Vol. 20, Nº. 3, 2015, págs. 341-369
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
-
Resumen
Before the beginning of the euro-area crisis, fees (premiums) for Credit Default Swaps (CDS) for the same entity (country) but nominated in different currencies were nearly equal. This is still true for non-euro area countries during the crisis; but these differences have increased dramatically for euro-area countries since the beginning of the crisis. For some euro-area countries investors have to pay more for Euro compared to US-Dollar nominated CDSs, while for other euro-area countries the opposite is true.
This paper analyzes by using a simple theoretical model and thereafter testing empirically the differences between CDS fees nominated in Euro and US-Dollar and concludes that the volatility of the differences is largely explained, next to the USDollar-Euro forward rate, by the probability of a collapse of the Euro(-currency). Market uncertainty is shown to play a significant role; nevertheless, it only explains a small fraction of the volatility of these differences.
Further, our empirical results imply that for the countries analyzed in this paper { Germany, France, Finland and Italy {, market participants expect in the case of a euro-collapse and the subsequent failure of the respective sovereign a depreciation of the newly introduced local currency.
