Dynamic nonlinear impacts of oil price returns and financial uncertainties on credit risks of oil-exporting countries

• Published in: Energy economics 2020-05, Vol.88, p.104747, Article 104747
• Main Authors: Naifar, Nader, Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, Hammoudeh, Shawkat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bond markets; Bonds; Cooperation; Credit; Credit default swaps; Credit risk; Economic conditions; Empirical analysis; Energy economics; Exports; Financial uncertainty; International cooperation; Oil; Oil volatility; Petroleum; Prices; Quantile-on-Quantile approach; Regression analysis; Risk premiums; Securities markets; Sovereign CDS spreads; Uncertainty; Wealth
• ISSN: 0140-9883; 1873-6181
• DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104747

This paper investigates the dynamic and nonlinear impact of oil price returns on the sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads for the oil-rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and other important oil-exporting countries, namely Venezuela, Mexico and Russia. We employ the standard quantile regression analysis, the rolling quantile regression, and finally, the Quantile-on-quantile (QQ) approach that allows one to investigate the dependence dynamics of the sovereign CDS spreads under different credit market conditions. The empirical results show that oil price returns significantly and favorably decrease the sovereign credit risk premium of the non-GCC oil-exporting countries under consideration. However, the results also suggest no or little impact on the sovereign credit risk premium of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Norway, which have the most significant sovereign wealth funds in the world. The negative (i.e. favorable) impact of oil price returns on the sovereign CDS spreads, where present, gradually increases with the quantile level and is the highest during the bullish credit market conditions. The results also show that those CDS spreads are more sensitive to the global bond market uncertainty factor than to the global equity market uncertainty factor. •We use different quantile approaches.•Oil price returns affect the sovereign credit risk premium.•The non-GCC exporters are the most countries affected by oil prices.•Countries not affected have huge sovereign wealth funds.