Counterparty Risk on a CDS in a Markov Chain Copula Model with Joint Defaults

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper we study the counterparty risk on a payer CDS in a Markov chain model of two reference credits, the firm underlying the CDS and the protection seller in the CDS. We first state few preliminary results about pricing and CVA of a CDS with counterparty risk in a general set-up. We then introduce a Markov chain copula model in which wrong way risk is represented by the possibility of joint defaults between the counterpart and the firm underlying the CDS. In the set-up thus specified we derive semi-explicit formulas for most quantities of interest with regard to CDS counterparty risk such as price, CVA, EPE or hedging strategies. Model calibration is made simple by the copula property of the model. Numerical results show adequacy of the behavior of EPE and CVA in the model with stylized features.