Credit Derivatives, Disintermediation, and Investment Decisions

The credit derivatives market provides a liquid but opaque forum for secondary market trading of banking assets. I show that, when entrepreneurs rely on the certification value of bank debt to obtain cheap bond market finance, the existence of a credit derivatives market may cause them to issue sub-investment grade bonds instead and engage in second-best behavior. Credit derivatives can therefore cause disintermediation and thus reduce welfare. I argue that this effect can be most effectively countered by the introduction of reporting requirements for credit derivatives.