Macro Factors in Corporate Bond Credit and Liquidity Spreads

Abstract

This paper studies the macroeconomic determinants of the term structures of Treasury yields, corporate bond credit spreads, and corporate bond liquidity spreads in a unified no-arbitrage framework. Four economic factors, monetary conditions, inflation, real output, and financial market volatility, are extracted from a set of macroeconomic and financial data series. During the pre-crisis period, volatility shocks decrease Treasury yields and widen both credit spreads and liquidity spreads for all rating classes, and credit spreads widen as monetary conditions tighten, but the effects of inflation and real output are insignificant. In times of stress, financial market volatility has a similar impact and the impacts of inflation and real output become significant as well. Ignoring the liquidity component of corporate yield spreads is shown to lead to inaccurate estimation of the impacts of economic factors on corporate credit spreads. The paper also provides evidence of ”flight-to-liquidity” behavior which strengthens in bad times and sheds light on the negative correlation between the risk-free rate and corporate yield spreads as well as on the positive correlation between credit spreads and liquidity spreads.