We consider default by firms that are part of a single clearing mechanism. The obligations of all firms within the system are determined simultaneously in a fashion consistent with the priority of debt claims and the limited liability of equity. We first show, via a fixed-point argument, that there always exists a "clearing payment vector" that clears the obligations of the members of the clearing system; under mild regularity conditions, this clearing vector is unique. Next, we develop an algorithm that both clears the financial system in a computationally efficient fashion and provides information on the systemic risk faced by the individual system firms. Finally, we produce qualitative comparative statics for financial systems. These comparative statics imply that, in contrast to single-firm results, even unsystematic, nondissipative shocks to the system will lower the total value of the system and may lower the value of the equity of some of the individual system firms.Credit Risk, Default, Clearing Systems

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Following Bollerslev et al. (2000), this study characterizes the high-frequency volatility of the Japanese Government Bond (JGB) futures on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in terms of intraday calendar effects, announcement effects and volatility persistence effects. The results indicate that, unlike the case for the US Treasury bond futures, only four out of 21 scheduled macroeconomic announcements are found to have a significant impact on volatilities, and their instantaneous and daily influences are rather small. At both instantaneous and daily frequencies, volatility persistence effects have the largest influence on volatility, while macroeconomic announcements have only a negligible impact.

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