PD-LGD correlation study: Evidence from the Russian corporate bond market

摘要

The capital adequacy ratio is one of the important regulatory requirement for banks, which indicates its willingness to cover losses in the event of borrowers’ defaults. The Probability of Default (PD) and Loss Given Default (LGD) are two core parameters of the internal risk rating models used to calculate regulatory capital under the assumption that PD and LGD are independent. Papers based on developed countries data provide evidence the dependence to be positive. It causes that banks underestimate the level of a risk of its loan portfolio, while they do not take into account the existence of such relationship. This is the first paper which aims to estimate the relationship between PD and LGD for Russian public companies. A major conclusion of the research is that using Russian data one cannot argue for the presence of risk parameter dependence whereas research using developed countries’ data suggests there is a positive one. This implies there is no need to overcharge capital for Russian banks compared to their counterparts from developed countries.