RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Factor Copulas JF The Journal of Derivatives FD Institutional Investor Journals SP 94 OP 102 DO 10.3905/jod.2007.681816 VO 14 IS 3 A1 Martijn van der Voort YR 2007 UL https://pm-research.com/content/14/3/94.abstract AB Currently the industry standard model for correlated defaults is the single factor Gaussian copula, in which an issuer's default intensity comes from exposure to a common factor, which gives rise to correlation across issuers, plus an idiosyncratic component. In a rationally Bayesian world, occurrence of a default will raise the posterior expected value of the unobservable common factor, which in turn increases estimates of default correlation among the remaining credits. But this is inappropriate for defaults like those of Enron and Parmalat, that were clearly due to reasons unrelated to any common factor. In this article, van der Voort proposes modifying the Gaussian copula by adding another idiosyncratic term to deal with such cases. He shows that the model extended in this way is distinctly better able to capture the correlation skew in synthetic CDO tranche prices.TOPICS: CLOs, CDOs, and other structured credit, credit default swaps, statistical methods