Bond Spreads Research Articles

Stocks versus corporate bonds: A cross-sectional puzzle

We study the cross-sectional relation between stock and corporate bond markets. By correcting credit spreads of corporate bonds for expected default losses and by using equity-bond elasticities, we obtain a firm’s expected bond-implied stock return, which we then compare to its realized stock return. We find, surprisingly, a strong negative cross-sectional relation between these expected and realized stock returns. We show that this effect is not simply a restatement of the distress risk puzzle or other well-known anomalies in stock and corporate bond markets. This negative cross-sectional relation is strongest for high-risk firms and for liquid stocks.

Pricing like things alike: The role of financial statement comparability in bond pricing

Using a modified financial statement comparability measure and data from the Chinese corporate bond market, this paper investigates the role of firm-pair financial statement comparability in bond pricing. Following the notion that financial statement comparability should be an ideal clue to screen benchmarks, we predict that, in the book-building stage, institutional investors tend to benchmark the bond in question to bonds issued by informationally comparable firms to make their quotes of interest rates. The empirical results show that the issue spread of a new bond is convergent to the yield spread of the bonds issued by comparable firms. This phenomenon is more pronounced when the issuing firm has no listed bond to act as a reference and when the comparable firm is covered by more analysts. Further analysis in the secondary market shows that the spreads of two bonds issued by two accounting comparable firms are not only convergent but also highly correlated. Our study provides a better understanding of how a corporate bond is priced and highlights the value of financial statement comparability to bond investors.

Estimating actual probability of default from structural models

In this paper, we study the probability of default, the credit default swap (CDS) implied probability of default, and the estimated actual probability of default from the structural models. We first show that the conditional risk-neutral probability of default is totally different from the CDS implied probability of default, and the CDS implied probability of default provides biased estimation of a corporation’s actual probability of default. Hence, the common belief that the CDS implied probability of default gives unbiased (or reliable) estimations of the firm’s probability of default is false. Furthermore, we use the credit spread risk premium as the difference of the physical measure and the risk-neutral measure of the credit spread to estimate the actual bond spread, and relate the credit spread risk premium in terms of the market price of risk and the credit spread volatility. Using the credit spread volatility and the risk-neutral credit spread and the market price of risk in hybrid HPD model, we obtain the estimated actual probability of default in a structural model. The estimated actual probability of default would be useful for credit rating agencies, investors, credit risk managers and regulators.

Overnight rate and signalling effects of central bank bills

We analyse the impact of interest-bearing central bank bills on financial market variables in Switzerland. The unique institutional setting allows us to identify the causal effects of two orthogonal shocks occurring on days with central bank bill auctions through heteroscedasticity: an overnight interest rate shock and a signalling shock. The first shock raises the overnight interest rate and modestly appreciates the exchange rate. The signalling shock appreciates the exchange rate more strongly. In addition, it lowers stock prices, long-term interest rates, as well as inflation expectations, and it raises corporate bond spreads. The signalling shock is economically more important for forward-looking variables than the overnight rate shock. The results suggest that liquidity-absorbing operations between official monetary policy decisions affect financial market variables by revealing information about the central bank’s future policy actions.

Optimal public debt composition during debt crises: A review of theoretical literature

AbstractThis study surveys the theoretical literature on the optimal public debt composition during sovereign debt crises. This survey is particularly relevant because sovereign debt crises have been recurrent manifestations over the past few decades, and there is growing evidence on the critical role of the composition of public debt portfolios during such events. Public debt composition refers to the characteristics of public debt portfolios, such as debt maturity, currency composition, and types of creditors. This survey adopts a broad definition of sovereign debt crisis, encompassing a post‐default phase when the crisis‐ridden country enters debt renegotiations and restructuring, and a pre‐default phase in which debtor countries either take a large non‐concessional loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid debt default and restructuring or experience critically high bond spreads and default risk. This survey collects the dispersed literature on the theoretically optimal public debt composition choices from a sovereign borrower's perspective during both phases of the sovereign debt crisis. The surveyed theoretical literature reveals several trade‐offs underlying the sovereign's public debt composition choices during debt crises.

How Does Monetary Policy Affect Prices of Corporate Loans?

<ns3:p>This paper studies the impact of unanticipated monetary policy news around FOMC announcements on secondary market corporate loan spreads. I find that the reaction of loan spreads to monetary policy news is weaker than that of bond spreads: following an unanticipated monetary policy tightening (easing) shock, loan spreads do not increase (decrease) as much as bond spreads do. Decomposition of the spreads into compensations for expected defaults and risk premiums shows that differential reactions of loan and bond risk premiums are the main driver of the differential spread reactions. This paper further finds that the weaker loan spread reactions to monetary policy shocks are more pronounced for riskier loans. Lastly, reactions of primary market loan spreads to monetary policy shocks are also muted. These findings highlight heterogeneous impacts of monetary policy across different types of corporate credit markets, possibly reflecting heterogeneous investor demand responses to monetary policy in those markets.</ns3:p>

Uncertainty and the Cost of Bank versus Bond Finance

AbstractHow does uncertainty affect the costs of raising finance in the bond market and via bank loans? Empirically, this paper finds that heightened uncertainty is accompanied by an increase in corporate bond spreads, whereas spreads on bank loans remain unchanged. This finding can be explained with a model that includes costly state verification and in which banks maintain long‐term relationships with borrowers and acquire information beyond what is publicly available. After an unexpected increase in uncertainty, the probability of borrower default increases. Banks leave the loan spread unchanged to maintain the relationship. In contrast, bond spreads increase because investors demand compensation for the increased default risk.

Sovereign Risk and Government Change: Elections, Ideology and Experience

Global capital markets can react dramatically to elections in developing countries, affecting governments’ access to finance and sometimes setting off broader crises. We argue, contrary to some conventional wisdom, that investors do not systematically react to the election of left-leaning parties and candidates. Government ideology is often an imprecise heuristic, given the diversity in policies among parties, especially those on the left. We therefore expect that neither elections generally, nor elections that produce specific partisan outcomes, are associated with significant changes in sovereign financing costs. Yet we also predict that the election of left-leaning parties will generate volatility in sovereign bond markets, reflecting investors’ uncertainty over future policy outcomes. This volatility is especially pronounced when new governments take office; over time, however, government policy performance enables investors to make increasingly precise estimates of political risk. Volatility has implications for the real economy, as well as for governments’ ability to manage their debt. We test, and find support for, our core expectations using monthly data on sovereign bond spreads and credit default swap prices for 74 developing countries from 1994–2015.

CDS Market Structure and Bond Spreads

CDS Market Structure and Bond Spreads

CDS market structure and bond spreads

CDS market structure and bond spreads

Liquidity, Credit Risk, and Their Interaction on the Spreads in China’s Corporate Bond Market

This paper investigates the impact of multidimension liquidity, credit risk, and the interaction between liquidity and credit risk on corporate bond spreads based on a large transaction data set from July, 2006 to June, 2016, including the monthly data of 3716 bonds in China. Our main findings reveal that liquidity premiums are the main parts of corporate bond spreads. The interaction between liquidity and credit risk plays a significant role in determining corporate bond spreads. In addition, the differences between the interbank market and the exchange market have a significant impact on corporate bond spreads in normal period, and the interaction between liquidity and credit risk has an enhanced impact on corporate bond spreads during financial crisis. We also find that the interaction between liquidity and credit risk will increase with the increase of liquidity risk and credit risk and it is a time‐varying dynamic process.

A Revisit to Sovereign Risk Contagion in Eurozone with Mutual Exciting Regime-Switching Model

This paper proposes a new mutual exciting regime-switching model where crises can spread contagiously across countries. Each country has its own hidden stochastic process that determines whether the country is in a normal or crisis regime. Contagion is defined as a rise in the transition probability to the crisis regime when other countries are in crisis in the past state. Using this new approach, I revisit the sovereign risk contagion in the euro area. I find that there are striking shifts in market pricing functions for the sovereign bond spreads. Multi-country contagion plays a dominant role in driving such shifts, while common risk factors and country-specific fundamentals are much less important.

Relationship between Municipal Bond Spreads and Incremental Information of Public Financial Statements based on the "Unified Standard Model" in Japan

Relationship between Municipal Bond Spreads and Incremental Information of Public Financial Statements based on the "Unified Standard Model" in Japan

Common Risk Factors in the Cross Section of Catastrophe Bond Returns

Historically, cat bonds have provided high single-digit average annual returns, paired with a low volatility and little correlation to other asset classes. While there is an extensive literature that explains (ex-ante) cat bonds spreads, there is no factor model in the academic literature that explains this (ex-post) realized return puzzle. Based on monthly quoted prices for the complete cat bond market from 2001 to 2020, we provide insights into relevant risk factors in the cross-section of cat bond returns. After investigating a battery of possible cat bond return factors in bivariate and multivariate portfolio sorts as well as Fama-MacBeth regressions, we propose a four-factor cat bond model. Its factors are the seasonality adjusted probability of first loss, a separate seasonality adjustment factor and the two corporate bond factors TERM and DEF from Fama & French. This novel four-factor model predicts 60% of the time series variation of the historical cat bond market returns - as opposed to 4% for the Fama & French three- or five-factor model - and substantially reduces the observable alpha of the cat bond market.

Do the SDGs Affect Sovereign Bond Spreads? First Evidence

Do the SDGs Affect Sovereign Bond Spreads? First Evidence

Corporate bond spreads and understated pension liabilities

PurposeThe question is whether debt market investors see through managers' attempts to hide their pension obligations. The authors establish a robust relation between understated pension liabilities and corporate bond yield spreads after controlling for factors that have been previously identified as having a significant impact on firms' cost of borrowing. The results support the idea that bond market investors are not being misled by the use of high pension liability discount rates by some companies to lower their reported pension obligations. For a small fraction of debt issuers, the reported pension liabilities are larger than the pension liabilities valued at the stipulated interest rate benchmarks. For these issuers with overstated pension liabilities, bond investors adjust their borrowing costs downward.Design/methodology/approachThe authors investigate the relation between corporate bond yield spreads and understated pension liabilities relative to long-term Treasury and high-grade corporate bond yields. They aim to answer two questions. First, what are the sizes of over or understated pension liabilities relative to guideline benchmarks? Second, do debt market investors see through the potential management manipulation of pension discount rates? The authors find that firms with large understated pension liabilities face higher marginal borrowing costs after taking into account issue-specific features, firm characteristics, macroeconomic conditions and other pension information such as funded status and mandatory contributions.FindingsThe average understated projected benefit obligations (PBOs) are understated by $394.3 and $335.6, equivalent to 3.5 and 3.0% of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. The average understated accumulated benefit obligations (ABOs) are understated by $359.3 and $305.3 million, equivalent to 3.1 and 2.6%, of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. Relative to AA-grade corporate bond yields, the average difference between firm pension discount rates and benchmark yields becomes much smaller; the percentage of firm pension discount rates higher than benchmark yields is also much smaller. As a result, understated pension liabilities become negligible. The authors establish a robust relation between corporate bond yield spreads and measures of understated pension liabilities after controlling for issue-specific features, firm characteristics, other pension information (funded status and mandatory contributions), macroeconomic conditions, calendar effects and industry effects.Originality/valueS&P Rating Services recognizes the issue that there is considerably more variability in discount rate assumptions among companies than in workforce demographics or the interest rate environment in which firms operate (Standard and Poor's, 2006). S&P also indicates that it would be desirable to normalize different discount rate assumptions but acknowledges that it is difficult to do so. In practice, S&P Rating Services conducts periodic surveys to see whether firms' assumed discount rates conform to the normal standard. The paper makes an initial attempt to quantify the size of understated pension liabilities and their impact on corporate bond yield spreads. This approach can be extended to study firms' costs of equity capital, the pricing of seasoned equity offerings and the pricing of merger and acquisition transaction deals, among other questions.

The credit spread curve distribution and economic fluctuations in Japan

Predicting the future economy is of great interest to practitioners and policymakers. In this study, we confront this problem by examining the relationship between credit spread curves and future economic activity. To this end, we construct a monthly empirical distribution of credit spread curves by calculating credit spreads of corporate bonds at the firm level in Japan and examine whether it can be used to predict a Japanese business cycle. We find that the credit spread curve information in higher deciles (implying lower credit quality) provides more predictive power for the future economy than the information of government bond yield curve or the credit spread index suggested by previous studies. In addition, the smooth-transition predictive regression analysis demonstrates that credit spread curves have more predictive power under the low uncertainty regime, and depict a significant predictive power for a short horizon for both regimes. Finally, our component-wise analysis shows that the credit spread curve information has robust predictive power for producer-side indicators under the low uncertainty regime and for labor market conditions, regardless of the regime.

The Inverted Yield Curve, Austrian Business Cycle Theory, and the True Money Supply

Ever since Campbell Harvey’s (1986) doctoral dissertation, academic economists have studied the ability of an inverted yield curve to “predict” an impending recession with impressive accuracy given suitable specifications. Many economists (including Campbell) explain the correlation by neoclassical “consumption smoothing,” while others attribute the connection to monetary policy’s ability to affect the business cycle. We agree with Cwik (2004 and 2005) that the Misesian circulation credit theory of the trade cycle, relying on both monetary and “real” (capital structural) elements, is superior to both flavors of mainstream explanation. In this paper, our contribution is to show that the growth rate of the Rothbard-Salerno measure of the “true money supply” tracks movements in Treasury bond spreads remarkably well. This provides additional support for our claim that the Austrian theory of the business cycle explains the “predictive power” of the yield curve better than the mainstream approach.

Unemployment Risk

AbstractFluctuations in the risk of a large increase in unemployment are examined. The analysis compares medium‐term risks—that is, risks at a 3‐year horizon—to those over a 1‐year horizon. The primary approach involves quantile regressions. Robustness exercises examine risks using a logistic regression to model the probability of a large increase in the unemployment rate. U.S. experience reveals an elevated risk of large increases in unemployment over the medium term when credit growth is high and when the unemployment rate is low. Near‐term risks to unemployment are closely tied to changes in corporate bond spreads or the slope of the yield curve, consistent with research on recession prediction, but these factors do not play a sizable role in medium‐term risks. These results highlight the value of considering different near‐ and medium‐term risk factors.

The Role of CDS Market in the Price Discovery Process of the “PIIGS” Countries Sovereign Credit Risk During the Recent Decade of Monetary Easing

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze the long-lasting dynamic relationship between the credit default swap (CDS) premia and the government bond spreads (GBS), with regard to the sovereign credit risk. The practical focus is to evaluate whether the CDS market effectively is the leading or the lagging market in the credit risk price discovery process during the last decade of monetary easing. The analysis extends to all “sensitive” countries in the Eurozone, the so-called “PIIGS” countries (excluded Greece) for the interval 2007-2017. JEL classification numbers: G01, G12, G14, G20. Keywords: CDS spread, Government bond spread, Sovereign credit risk, Cointegration, Vector error correction model, Granger-causality.