Corporate Bond Yield Curve Modeling: A Rating-Based Regime-Switching Generalized CIR Approach

Abstract

Persistent shifts in term-structure dynamics undermine the stability of single-regime models in long samples. We develop an arbitrage-free regime-switching generalized CIR (RS-GCIR) model that jointly prices the Chinese government bond (CGB) curve and corporate bond curves. To capture the systematic transmission from interest-rate conditions to credit spreads, we structure the model into two blocks and price corporate bonds conditional on the prevailing rate regime. The rate block features a two-state RS-GCIR short-rate process estimated from CGB zero-coupon curves, while the credit block embeds CIR-type credit factors in an intensity-based framework for rating migration and default. We implement a block-recursive Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) procedure--filtering the rate block first and the credit block next--using weekly data from 2014--2025, a period that begins with the onset of China's modern corporate default cycle. We identify two persistent rate regimes with distinct level--volatility profiles. Relative to single-regime benchmarks, regime switching improves joint curve fit, delivers economically interpretable filtered regime probabilities, and sharpens the decomposition of corporate yields into discounting and credit compensation.