PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Andreas Wengner AU - Niklas Lampenius AU - Timo Haas TI - Market-Based Sovereign Ceiling: <em>Evidence from</em> <br/> <em>the European Sovereign Debt Crisis</em> AID - 10.3905/jfi.2014.24.2.045 DP - 2014 Sep 30 TA - The Journal of Fixed Income PG - 45--60 VI - 24 IP - 2 4099 - https://pm-research.com/content/24/2/45.short 4100 - https://pm-research.com/content/24/2/45.full AB - This article examines the impact of sovereign downgrades on European firms for equity and credit default swap (CDS) markets during the 2009–2012 period. The authors find evidence of spillover effects, where sovereign downgrades lead to negative abnormal stock returns and positive abnormal CDS spread changes for firms headquartered within the affected sovereign. The findings suggest the relevance of a market-based sovereign ceiling that could explain the observed risk spillover to debt and equity markets. The results supply confirmatory evidence of the relevance of a market-based sovereign ceiling in cross-sectional regressions and no evidence (as expected) for the relevance of a market-based sovereign ceiling for the safe-harbor sovereign—Germany. The authors also find that German firms, as safe-harbor firms, profit from downgrades of foreign sovereigns in terms of positive abnormal returns.TOPICS: Credit default swaps, credit risk management, developed