Credit Derivatives: Capital Requirements and Strategic Contracting∗ Antonio Nicol`o Loriana Pelizzon Department of Economics Department of Economics University of Padova University of Venice and SSAV
[email protected] [email protected] Abstract How do non-publicly observable credit derivatives affect the design contracts that buyers may offer to signal their own types? When credit derivative contracts are private, how do the different rules of capital adequacy affect these contracts? In this paper we address these issues and show that, under Basel I, high-quality banks can use CDO contracts to signal their own type, even when credit derivatives are private contracts. However, with the introduction of Basel II the presence of private credit derivative contracts prevents the use of CDO as signalling device if the cost of capital is large. We also show that a menu of contracts based on a basket of loans characterized by different maturities and a credit default swap conditioned on the default of the short term loans can be used as a signalling device. Moreover, this last menu generates larger profits for high-quality banks than the CDO contract if the cost of capital and the loan interest rates are sufficiently high. JEL Classification: G21, D82 Keywords: Credit derivatives, Signalling contracts, Capital requirements. ∗We gratefully acknowledge conversations with Franklin Allen, Viral Acharya, Andrea Beltratti, Mark Carey, Ottorino Chillemi, Francesco Corielli, Marcello Esposito, Mark Flannery, Anke Gerber, Michel Gordy, Gary Gorton, Piero Gottardi, John Hull, Patricia Jackson, Fabio Manenti, Giovanna Nicodano, Bruno Parigi, Stephen Schaefer, Walter Torous, Elu vonThadden, Guglielmo Weber, seminar audiences at University of Padua, University of Bologna seminars and participants at Centro Baffi Workshop, Milan, EFMA 2004, Basel, La Sapienza University Workshop, Rome, CERF Conference on Financial Innovation, Cambridge, FMA 2005, Siena, CREDIT 2005, Venice.