Jun Kyung Auh

ABSTRACT We study secured lending contracts using a proprietary, loan‐level database of bilateral repurchase agreements containing groups of simultaneous loans backed by multiple tranches within a securitization. We show that lower‐quality loans (i.e., loans backed by lower‐rated collateral) have higher margins and spreads. We calibrate a model using collateral asset prices and find that lower‐quality loans are riskier despite the higher margins, yet cheaper for the borrower. This finding is con

Climate change is increasing the frequency of natural disasters, which could make municipal bonds a riskier asset class. We study the effects of natural disasters on municipal bond returns, exploiting the repeat sales approach to overcome the challenge that municipal bonds trade extremely infrequently. We find substantial price effects that materialize gradually: returns of uninsured bonds fall slowly in the weeks following a disaster, by 0.31% on average, translating into investor losses of alm

Despite common wisdom that equities and bonds are segmented, the organization structure of fund families can offset frictions regarding cross-asset segmentation. We find that activelymanaged equity funds and corporate bond funds linked within a mutual fund family exhibit a significant co-movement in holdings of commonly-held firms' equities and bonds. Such crossholdings facilitate information spillover, manifesting itself in the co-movement. Synthesizing cross-asset information can predict futur

Abstract This paper examines whether credit rating agencies applied consistent rating standards to US corporate bonds in the periods surrounding the 2008 financial crisis. Based on estimates of issuing firms' credit quality from a structural model, I find that rating standards are in fact procyclical: ratings are stricter during an economic downturn than during an economic expansion. As a result, firms receive overly pessimistic ratings in a recession, relative to during an expansion. I further

This paper shows that when the bankruptcy code protects the creditors’ rights with no impairments to secured creditors, issuance of debt such as repo with exemption from automatic stay adds no value. When the bankruptcy process admits violations of absolute priority rules or results in collateral impairments to secured creditors, the liability structure includes short-term debt, with safe harbor protection when the pledged collateral satisfies a minimum liquidity threshold. Safe harbor rights

Abstract We investigate corporate bond defaults from 1995 to 2020 using hand‐collected data from hard‐copy publications in Korea. Using an under‐sampling method, we construct default prediction models based on machine learning models as well as a logistic model. The empirical results show that the random forest model outperforms the others. However, regardless of the models used, model performance in financial crisis periods is significantly worse than it is in non‐crisis periods. This finding s

This paper quantifies the causal effect of borrowing cost on firms’ investment decisions. To overcome the empirical challenge due to a possible reverse causality where firms’ investment prospects affect their borrowing costs, I apply an instrumental variable methodology where the identification comes from insurance companies’ regulatory constraints regarding the credit rating of their bond holdings. Rating-based regulatory constraints are more binding for insurers with a weaker capital position.