This section discusses the evolution of academic and industry credit modeling research in economics, finance and insurance. This is not meant as a complete summary of such a vast body of work, but is intended instead to motivate the analysis surrounding the survey responses later in this document.
This literature review covers recent developments in credit risk modeling in top-tier actuarial, economic, econometric and financial peer-reviewed journals. The survey includes work from the theoretical, empirical and practitioner space covering default modeling, loss given default, and the evaluation of interest rate and credit risk in a unified framework. A partial listing of examined peer-reviewed sources includes: The North American Actuarial Journal, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Econometrica, American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Econometrics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of Financial Economics, Applied Financial Economics, Applied Mathematical Finance, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and The Journal of Financial Economics. We also include appropriate material from the American Academy of Actuaries’ Standards of Practice, Society of Actuaries, Association for Investment Management and Research, as well as several presentations from risk management conferences. Of course, special attention is given to papers that are heavily cited by subsequent work, as well as especially recent publications. Candidate papers from industry were found on the SOA website and CFA Institute website using a search function for "credit risk modeling" or "credit modeling.” Search results were then scanned for papers of interest. For the purposes of this review, we first focus on the economics and finance literature, paying special attention to historically important articles, those that were first to illustrate how to incorporate credit risk in particular ways, and any that shed light on the relative merits of a particular approach. Following this, we discuss insurance and industry-specific research, including journal publications, presentations, and industry assessments.