DO PRIVATE SECTOR SHORT-TERM EXTERNAL DEBT HAVE IMPACT ON CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP PREMIUMS IN TURKEY? AN ANALYSIS WITH ASYMMETRIC THRESHOLD COINTEGRATION APPROACH

Abstract

A country’s capacity to pay short-term external debt, which reflects the fiscal strenght of an economy against adverse shocks, is significantly taken into consideration by international investors in their decision making process. It has been seen that Turkey has experienced a gradually increasing private sector short-term external debt especially in the last twenty-year period. The objective of this study is to investigate the long-run relationship between private sector short-term external debt and CDS (credit default swap) premiums in Turkey for the period of 2000:Q4-2017:Q4 by using asymmetric threshold autoregressive (TAR) and momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) procedures of Enders and Siklos (2001). The results indicate that CDS premiums and private sector short-term external debt in Turkey are cointegrated. After finding cointegration, the null hypothesis of symmetric adjustment is tested against the alternative of asymmetric adjustment and the evidence of symmetric adjustment is found, suggesting that the relationship between the private sector short-term external debt and CDS premiums has the same effect in expansion and contraction periods.