Brady bond securities represent a substantial fraction of emerging
markets countries internationally tradable sovereign debt. The credit risk
spread above and beyond the U.S. treasury curve for these securities is
usually large in size and volatility. Moreover, most Brady bonds carry
embedded options that lead to the existence of an Option-Adjusted Spread,
OAS, which increase their risk profiles. In this paper we present an
empirical study of the dynamics of Brady bonds OAS using a heath, Jarrow and
Morton term structure pricing model. The dynamics of the spread shows that
the proper risk management and pricing of these securities require the
consideration of volatility in addition to the magnitude of the sovereign
risk spread. That is, the proper risk measure for these securities would be
the pair (OAS, OAS Volatility). A study of implied default probabilities is
also presented. Our analysis is illustrated with bonds from Brazil,
Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Bulgaria and the Philippines.