The Role of CDS Market in the Price Discovery Process of the “PIIGS” Countries Sovereign Credit Risk During the Recent Decade of Monetary Easing

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the long-lasting dynamic relationship between the credit default swap (CDS) premia and the government bond spreads (GBS), with regard to the sovereign credit risk. The practical focus is to evaluate whether the CDS market effectively is the leading or the lagging market in the credit risk price discovery process during the last decade of monetary easing. The analysis extends to all “sensitive” countries in the Eurozone, the so-called “PIIGS” countries (excluded Greece) for the interval 2007-2017. JEL classification numbers: G01, G12, G14, G20. Keywords: CDS spread, Government bond spread, Sovereign credit risk, Cointegration, Vector error correction model, Granger-causality.