Spillover effects in oil-related CDS markets during and after the sub-prime crisis

Abstract

This paper investigates the return and volatility spillover effects across oil-related credit default swaps (CDSs), the oil market, and financial market risks for the US during and after the subprime crises. The empirical analysis is based on monthly return and realized volatility data from February 2004 to April 2020. We estimate both static and dynamic generalized dynamic spillover measures based on vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Our full sample empirical findings show that the oil market is the primary source of risk transmission for all the oil-related credit default swaps, while the bond market is the highest source of risk transmission to the stock market and vice versa. We also provide evidence that the regulated monopoly US utility sector has the least role in volatility transmission. Furthermore, the bailout program conducted by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve helped stabilize the US financial market through the purchase of toxic assets after the subprime financial crisis. We find strong evidence that the federal funds rate hike cycles lessen total risk transmission throughout the US bond market. Finally, our findings assert that oil price shocks have a significant effect on the oil-related CDSs in some sub-periods via the demand and supply transmission channels.