Why is credit risk modeling more difficult than interest-rate modeling?

What will be an ideal response?


There are three reasons that can be cited for why credit risk modeling is more difficult than interest-rate modeling.

First, credit default risk is a rare event and, as a result, the historical data needed to compute the inputs into a credit risk model (e.g., default rates and recovery rates) are considerably less in comparison to the data available for the modeling of interest-rate risk where, for example, historical U. S. Treasury prices are available on a daily basis for many decades.

Second, even with the default data that are available, it is much more difficult to draw any meaningful and possibly predictive conclusions about the probability of default because of the diversity of the corporations involved (in terms of industry sector, size, and leverage) and the lack of complete information regarding corporate practices.

Three, there are various causes of default by a corporate borrower—ranging from microeconomic factors (such as poor management) to macroeconomic factors (such as high interest rates and recession)—that make default hard to predict.

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