The results provide strong evidence that both default risk and interest rate risk are necessary components for a valuation model for corporate debt.
Finally, we observe that while traditional approaches to modelling risky debt provide important conceptual insights, they have not provided practical tools for valuing realistic types of corporate securities. The primary advantage
of this model is that it is easily applied to all types of corporate debt securities and, therefore, can be used to provide specific pricing and hedging results rather than just general implications. In particular, the model provides
a simple theoretical benchmark against which the observed properties of risky corporate debt prices can be compared. Future research should focus on testing whether this two-factor model is able to explain the actual level of
corporate bond yields using detailed cross-sectional and time-series data for individual bonds and firms.