Understanding Credit Derivatives and Their Potential to Synthesize Riskless Assets

Abstract

The credit derivatives market is emerging as a potentially important new development that may help shape the overall financial markets in the years to come. In this paper, I provide a brief overview of the credit derivatives market and assess its future potential in the creation of private-sector instruments that are virtually free of default risk, and, thus, may be appealing to investors who currently favor the safety of U.S. Treasury securities.