Knowledge that Transforms

The development of organized markets for speculative-grade corporate debt has provided financial researchers with an opportunity to examine the pricing of default risk. By incorporating previous work on the default experience of low-rated corporate debt, this paper presents an introduction to risk-neutral models of risky-bond pricing and uses these to examine the relationship between the default premium embodied in bond yields and actual default rates. The contribution of macroeconomic information to the default premium is also examined. The author finds that holders of low-grade bonds have, on average, been compensated for losses due to default.

This paper investigates the cost structure of savings and loans. Most studies of financial institutions have failed to take into account the multiproduct nature of these institutions. Using the multiproduct approach, the existence of subadditivity, multiproduct global and product-specific economies of scale and scope, and substitutability between inputs is investigated. A translogarithmic cost function is estimated using 1982 data on California savings and loans. Restrictive functional forms also estimated are rejected. Standard errors for the statistics calculated are estimated, and various statistical tests are conducted. Previous authors have not calculated standard errors for these statistics. No evidence of subadditivity in the industry is found.

A Corrparison of