This paper investigates the forecasting accuracy of bankruptcy hazard rate models for U.S. companies over the time period 1962–1999 using both yearly and monthly observation intervals. The contribution of this paper is multiple-fold. One, using an expanded bankruptcy database we validate the superior forecasting performance of Shumway's (2001) model as opposed to Altman (1968) and Zmijewski (1984). Two, we demonstrate the importance of including industry effects in hazard rate estimation. Industry groupings are shown to significantly affect both the intercept and slope coefficients in the forecasting equations. Three, we extend the hazard rate model to apply to financial firms and monthly observation intervals. Due to data limitations, most of the existing literature employs only yearly observations. We show that bankruptcy prediction is markedly improved using monthly observation intervals. Fourth, consistent with the notion of market efficiency with respect to publicly available information, we demonstrate that accounting variables add little predictive power when market variables are already included in the bankruptcy model.

Using a market segmentation argument, this paper uses the interest rate derivative's arbitrage-free methodology to value both demand deposit liabilities and credit card loan balances in markets where deposits/loan rates may be determined under imperfect competition. In this context, these financial instruments are shown to be equivalent to a particular interest rate swap, where the principal depends on the past history of market rates. Solutions are obtained which are independent of any particular model for the evolution of the term structure of interest rates.

This paper studies the impact that margin requirements have on both the existence of arbitrage opportunities and the valuation of call options. In the context of the Black-Scholes economy, margin restrictions are shown to exclude continuous-trading arbitrage opportunities and, with two additional hypotheses, still to allow the Black-Scholes call model to apply. The Black-Scholes economy consists of a continuously traded stock with a price process that follows a geometric Brownian motion and a continuously traded bond with a price process that is deterministic.

This article proposes and estimates a tractable, arbitrage-free valuation model for corporate coupon bonds that includes a more realistic recovery rate process. Most existing studies use a recovery rate process that is misspecified because it includes recovery for coupons due after default. Misspecification errors from assuming recovery on all coupons can be substantial; they increase with recovery rates, coupons, maturity, and default probabilities. For a large sample of market transactions, i) our model has lower pricing errors than one assuming recovery on all coupons and ii) the magnitude of our model’s outperformance is linked to misspecification errors from assuming recovery on coupons.