Euro Area Bond Research Articles

The impact of the ECB’s PEPP on euro area bond spreads

The impact of the ECB’s PEPP on euro area bond spreads

Dispelling the shadow of fiscal dominance? Fiscal and monetary announcement effects for euro area sovereign spreads in the corona pandemic

We use event study regressions to compare the impact of monetary versus fiscal policy announcements on euro area government bond spreads in the unfolding Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout our specifications and robustness checks, we detect larger effects for monetary than for fiscal announcements. Among monetary policy instruments, the PEPP has the largest spread compressing effects. Comparing the announcement effects for fiscal crisis tools, Next Generation EU shows significant results in contrast to news on pure loan instruments. The relaxation of European fiscal rules through the activation of the emergency-escape clause under the Stability and Growth Pact is associated with rising spreads. We conclude that the stability of euro area bond markets in the presence of a severe solvency shock depends to a large extent on the Eurosystem’s unconstrained sovereign bond purchases. Our results suggest that fiscal support can play a stabilizing role if it includes, like Next Generation EU, a significant transfer component.

Underpricing in the euro area bond market: New evidence from post-crisis regulation and quantitative easing

We conduct an extensive study of underpricing in the euro area bond market and find strong evidence of underpricing. In cross-sectional regressions we find patterns that are consistent with bookbuilding-based theories of underpricing and inconsistent with liquidity-based explanations. The underpricing has increased considerably during the financial crisis and has remained at an elevated level since. We also show that secondary market liquidity in the euro area bond market is significantly lower in the post-crisis period than pre-crisis. These results are consistent with recent US evidence and may represent unintended side effects of new regulation enacted in the wake of the financial crisis, such as Basel III and the Volcker Rule. Furthermore, our evidence suggests that the ECB’s corporate sector purchase programs has led to a decrease in underpricing.

The Euro Area Bond Free Float and the Implications for QE

AbstractThis paper examines how shocks to government bond duration risk held by price‐sensitive investors affect the euro area term structure of interest rates and the wider macroeconomy. We construct a new measure of the bond “free float,” which adjusts total debt for foreign official holdings and weights by residual maturity. Using a small macrofinance Bayesian Vector Autoregression (VAR) model, we estimate that the first round of asset purchases under the European Central Bank's (ECB) public sector purchase program reduced euro area 10‐year bond yields by around 30 bps in 2015. The positive impact on the output gap and inflation in 2016 was about 0.2 and 0.3 ppt, respectively.

Have Sovereign Bond Market Relationships Changed in the Euro Area? Evidence from Italy

The Italian sovereign bond market experienced considerable disruption in May 2018 and subsequent months amid concerns about the fi scal implications of political developments in Italy. This episode is used to examine relationships among the euro area bond markets some six years after the euro area sovereign bond market crisis of 2009–2012. The main fi nding is that turbulence in a periphery Member State's bond market (in this case, Italy's) continues to have its strongest cross-border effects on other periphery countries' markets, while core Member States react by disengaging from the sovereign bond market where the disruption originates. The core-periphery distinction identifi ed among the 11 euro area Member States during the crisis then remains broadly intact. The implication for policy is that adverse country shocks continue to have asymmetrical effects within the euro area sovereign bond market. An emphasis on the sustainability of national public fi nances remains necessary, both to protect individual sovereigns against adverse market developments and to reduce the spillover of such shocks to other Member States.

Quantitative Easing and Preferred Habitat Investors in the Euro Area Bond Market

Quantitative easing (QE) aims to lower long term interest rates and stimulate economic growth via the portfolio rebalancing channel. One of the assumptions for QE to work is that there are investors with strong preferences to hold long term bonds, i.e. so called preferred habitat investors. This paper investigates whether the ECB’s Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) affected euro area investors’ demand for bonds using granular securities holdings data. The results show strong evidence that euro area investors acted as preferred habitat investors. These findings hold across all major euro area investors (banks, insurance companies, pension funds and investment funds). The results suggest that since the sellers of bonds in response to QE in the euro area are different from those that sold to the Fed, BoE and BoJ, policymakers need to pay particular attention to demand by non-euro area investors, especially if the ECB plans to reduce its balance sheet.

Financial integration in the European Union - the impact of the crisis on the bond market

Research background: In our paper we have analyzed the influence of the crisis on the financial integration in the European Monetary Union. We have analyzed EMU capital market to show the impact of the crisis, with the focus on the bonds market. The determinants of the research are yields and standard deviations on medium-term and long-term triple-A bond markets, as well as CDS medium-term premiums. Purpose of the article: The aim of this paper is to show the volatility of researched deter-minants in periods of crisis in EMU zones.Methods: As a model we used a modified theoretical CAL portfolio model. In the last fifteen years Europe has been faced with two major crises: the world economic crisis and sovereign debt crisis.Findings & Value added: We believe that the sovereign crisis hit EMU more, leaving the deeper implications on the financial integration. Our analysis has showed that the crisis had a major impact on the financial integration. Yields and standard deviations increased multiply in periods of crisis and left the impact of volatility on the capital market. However, the degree of convergence of euro area bond markets largely stabilized in last two years.

Modeling Euro Area Bond Yields Using a Time-Varying Factor Model

In this paper, we study the dynamics and drivers of sovereign bond yields in euro area countries using a factor model with time-varying loading coefficients and stochastic volatility, which allows for capturing changes in the pricing mechanism of bond yields. Our key contribution is exploring both the global and the local dimensions of bond yield determinants in individual euro area countries using a time-varying model. Using the reduced form results, we show decoupling of periphery euro area bond yields from the core countries yields following the financial crisis and the scope of their subsequent re-integration. In addition, by means of the structural analysis based on identification via sign restrictions, we present time varying impulse responses of bond yields to EA and US monetary policy shocks and to confidence shocks. JEL Classification: C11, G01, E58

A Tale of Fragmentation: Corporate Funding in the Euro-Area Bond Market

Corporations of different euro-area countries faced noticeably different costs of funding in the bond market during the prolonged period of financial instability that started in 2007. We identify the determinants of corporate bond yield spreads in order to isolate country-specific effects as indicators of market fragmentation. Our evidence hints at a disorderly process of reassessment of corporate credit risk since 2007, with country-specific spreads vis-a-vis Germany becoming strongly positive for issuers located in other euro-area countries (Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, in particular). After the introduction of the non-conventional monetary policy tool named OMT, the spreads declined considerably, but fragmentation disappeared only in the most recent period characterized by expectations and the actual deployment of ECB quantitative easing.

A tale of fragmentation: Corporate funding in the euro-area bond market

Corporations of different euro-area countries faced noticeably different costs of funding in the bond market during the prolonged period of financial instability which started in 2007. We identify the determinants of corporate bond yield spreads in order to isolate country-specific effects, as indicators of market fragmentation. Our evidence hints at a disorderly process of reassessment of corporate credit risk since 2007 with country-specific spreads vis-à-vis Germany becoming strongly positive for issuers located in other euro-area countries (Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, in particular). After the introduction of the non-conventional monetary policy tool named OMT, the spreads declined considerably, but fragmentation disappeared only in the latest period characterised by the expectations and the actual deployment of the ECB quantitative easing.

Are Euro-Area Corporate Bond Markets Irrelevant? The Effect of Bond Market Access on Investment

We compare how bond market access affects firms’ investment decisions in the United States and the euro area. Having a bond rating enables US corporations to invest more and undertake more acquisitions. In contrast, in the euro area, bond ratings have no effect on investment decisions. Similarly, firms with bond ratings have higher leverage in the United States, but not in the euro area. This difference may be due to euro-area firms getting sufficient financing from banks. Consistent with this explanation, euro-area bond ratings became more relevant for investment after the banking crisis of 2008, when banks reduced their lending to firms.

Bond Risk Premia, Macroeconomic Factors and Financial Crisis in the Euro Area

This paper investigates the power of macroeconomic factors to explain euro area bond risk premia using (i) a large dataset that captures the nowadays data-rich environment (ii) the Elastic Net variable selection. We find that macroeconomic factors, in particular economic activity and sentiment indicators, explain 40% of the variability of risk premia before the crisis, and up to 55% during the financial crisis, and both for core countries (from 40% to 60%) and periphery countries (from 35% to 44%). Moreover, macroeconomic factor models clearly outperform financial indicators like the CP-factor and credit default swap (CDS) premia, even in periods of significant market turbulence. JEL Classification: E43, E44, G01, G12, C52, C55

Bond Risk Premia, Macroeconomic Factors and Financial Crisis in the Euro Area

This paper investigates the power of macroeconomic factors to explain euro area bond risk premia using (i) a big dataset (ii) the Elastic Net variable selection. We find that macroeconomic factors, in particular economic activity and sentiment indicators, explain 40% of the variability of risk premia before the crisis, and up to 55% during the financial crisis, and both for core countries (from 40% to 60%) and periphery countries (from 35% to 44%). Moreover, macroeconomic factor models clearly outperform financial indicators like the CP-factor and credit default swap (CDS) premia, even in periods of significant market turbulence.

The geography of the great rebalancing in euro area bond markets during the sovereign debt crisis

During the sovereign debt crisis investors rebalanced out of stressed and into non-stressed euro area countries, thereby contributing to the tensions in euro area financial markets. This paper examines the geographical pattern of this great rebalancing. Specifically, we test whether euro area and non-euro area investors adjusted their holdings of debt securities of euro area stressed and non-stressed countries disproportionately relative to benchmarks derived from a standard gravity model for portfolio choice. We find that non-euro area investors under-invested in stressed euro area countries, but did not over-invest in non-stressed euro area countries. As regards intra-euro area flows, we do not find evidence for a disproportionate slowdown of capital flows from non-stressed into stressed euro area countries. Instead, our results suggest that investors in stressed euro area countries disproportionately shifted capital into debt securities of non-stressed euro area countries. Finally, we find that both non-euro area investors' under-investment in stressed countries and stressed euro area investors' over-investment in non-stressed euro area countries ceased after the announcement of the ECB's OMT programme.

The Geography of the Great Rebalancing in Euro Area Bond Markets During the Sovereign Debt Crisis

During the sovereign debt crisis investors rebalanced out of stressed and into non-stressed euro area countries, thereby contributing to the tensions in euro area financial markets. This paper examines the geographical pattern of this great rebalancing. Specifically, we test whether euro area and non-euro area investors adjusted their holdings of debt securities of euro area stressed and non-stressed countries dis-proportionately relative to benchmarks derived from a standard gravity model for portfolio choice. We find that non-euro area investors under-invested in stressed euro area countries, but did not over-invest in non-stressed euro area countries. As regards intra-euro area flows, we do not find evidence for a disproportionate slowdown of capital flows from non-stressed into stressed euro area countries. Instead, our results suggest that investors in stressed euro area countries disproportionately shifted capital into debt securities of non-stressed euro area countries. Finally, we find that both non-euro area investors' under-investment in stressed countries and stressed euro area investors' over-investment in non-stressed euro area countries ceased after the announcement of the ECB's OMT programme. JEL Classification: F34, F36, G15

Flight-to-Liquidity Flows in the Euro Area Sovereign Debt Crisis

In periods of market stress, portfolio reallocations in bond markets reflect both safety and liquidity concerns. Using sovereign and national agency bonds, we construct indicators of liquidity premia in major euro area bond markets; we document the weakening of the correlation between core and periphery market liquidity during the euro area sovereign bond crisis; and we identify several episodes of significant flight-to-liquidity (FTL) flows above and beyond flight-to-safety (FTS) spells in the period 2009-13. We show that FTL flows led to significant inverse moves in sovereign bond yields in euro area core and periphery markets. Moreover, FTL flows triggered declines in core and periphery stock markets and are associated with lower macroeconomic confidence in the euro area as a whole, which underscores the importance of FTL episodes for investors and policymakers alike.

The pricing of G7 sovereign bond spreads – The times, they are a-changin

Against the background of the current debate about fiscal sustainability in several advanced economies, this paper estimates determinants of G7 sovereign bond spreads, using high-frequency proxies for market expectations about macroeconomic fundamentals and allowing for time-varying parameters. The paper finds substantial asymmetry in the importance of country fundamentals and considerable time variations in the pricing of risks. There has been a reduced pricing of several risk factors in the years preceding the financial crisis, and either an over-pricing of risk or the pricing of a re-denomination risk of euro area bonds during the European sovereign debt crisis, a pattern that does not apply to the non-euro area G7 bonds.

Yield curve changes effect on Euro area bond indexes: a partial durations approach

The dimension of the interest rate changes impact on bond prices depends on bond duration and convexity. The present paper uses a partial durations approach, combined with convexity measures and maturity segmentation, to estimate the impact of the Euro area yield curve shifts on the values of highest grade European government bond indexes.

A Behavioural Model of European Bond Markets

This paper builds a new theory of euro area sovereign bond markets. The theory explains the anomalous bond pricing and increasing spreads during the ‘Euro-Crisis’. I show that the malfunctioning of euro area bond markets is triggered by asymmetric information and weak reputation in economic and fiscal policy. Both factors trigger a standard bond market to turn into turmoil. In the end, those markets are prone to self-fulfilling bubbles due to animal spirits. Consequently, mispricing of sovereign debt is inherent in the Eurozone and creates more macroeconomic instability than in a stand-alone country.

Was There a 'Greenspan Conundrum' in the Euro Area?

This paper implements an affine term structure model that accommodates unspanned macro risks for the Euro area, i.e. distinct from yield-curve risks. I use a Near-Cointegrated VAR-like approach to obtain a better estimation of the historical dynamics of the pricing factors, thus providing more accurate estimates of the term premium incorporated into the Eurozone's sovereign yield curve. I then look for notable episodes of the monetary cycle where long yields display a puzzling behavior vis-a-vis the short rate in contrast with the Expectation Hypothesis. The Euro-area bond market appears to have gone through its own Greenspan conundrum between January 1999 and August 2008. The term premium substantially contributed to these odd phenomena.