Graduation Year

2015

Date of Submission

12-2014

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Second Department

Mathematics

Reader 1

Fan Yu

Reader 2

Mark Huber

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2014 Elan M. Bernstein

Abstract

This paper empirically explores how the introduction of Credit Default Swap (CDS) trading affects firm systematic risk. By treating the introduction as an event study and imploring propensity score matching and difference-in-differences analysis, this research finds that firm exposure to market risk increases after the introduction of CDS instruments, controlling for higher debt levels. These findings change, however, in times of financial crisis when the impact of CDS trading actually reduces systematic risk. These results show that CDS introduction enables a firm to more dramatically change its exposure to systematic risk in comparison to its counterpart to reflect market conditions.

This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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