MA416      Half Unit
The Foundations of Interest Rate and Credit Risk Theory

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Prof Mihail Zervos

Availability

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Financial Mathematics. This course is available on the MSc in Quantitative Methods for Risk Management, MSc in Statistics (Financial Statistics) and MSc in Statistics (Financial Statistics) (Research). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Requisites

Pre-requisites:

Students must have completed ST409 before taking this course.

Course content

This course studies the mathematical foundations of interest rate and credit risk theory. The course starts with a development of the multi-dimensional Black & Scholes theory with stochastic market data. This is then used to show how discount bond dynamics modelling can be approached by (a) the modelling of the short-rate process and the market price of risk, which underlies the family of short-rate models, or (b) the modelling of the market price of risk and the discount bond volatility structure, which gives rise to the Heath-Jarrow-Morton (HJM) framework. The course then expands on the theory of interest rate market models and credit risk.

Teaching

10 hours of seminars and 20 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

Formative assessment

The main formative assessment will be in the form of weekly exercise sets, which will be discussed in the seminars. Some of the topics of these will be similar to what is expected in the summative assessment (exam).

 

Indicative reading

T R Bielecki and M Rutkowski, Credit Risk Modeling, Valuation and Hedging, Springer; M Musiela and M Rutkowski, Martingale Methods in Financial Engineering, Springer; R Rebonato, Modern Pricing of Interest-rate Derivatives: The LIBOR Market Model and Beyond, Princeton.

Assessment

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period


Key facts

Department: Mathematics

Course Study Period: Winter Term

Unit value: Half unit

FHEQ Level: Level 7

CEFR Level: Null

Total students 2024/25: 40

Average class size 2024/25: 40

Controlled access 2024/25: No
Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Course selection videos

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Personal development skills

  • Self-management
  • Problem solving
  • Application of information skills
  • Communication
  • Application of numeracy skills
  • Specialist skills