PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Alexander V Kozhemiakin TI - Relative Value of Emerging Markets Debt AID - 10.3905/joi.2005.517175 DP - 2005 May 31 TA - The Journal of Investing PG - 56--65 VI - 14 IP - 2 4099 - https://pm-research.com/content/14/2/56.short 4100 - https://pm-research.com/content/14/2/56.full AB - The article examines Standard & Poor's and Moody's historical data on default frequencies, recovery rates, and rating transition probabilities to evaluate whether similarly rated sovereign and corporate bonds are comparable in credit quality. Under these three quantitative standards of creditworthiness, countries and corporations have had broadly similar performance. Somewhat lower default probabilities and more stable ratings of sovereign obligors are consistent with the history of emerging markets bail-outs. Although yield spreads over U.S. Treasuries have been persistently wider for emerging market sovereign bonds than for corporate bonds, credit qualities of sovereign and corporate bonds with the same rating are not markedly different.