Holdings Of Sovereign Debt Research Articles

Foreign portfolio investments and voting bias in the Eurovision Song Contest

We investigate the role played by the voting bias in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in explaining international bilateral portfolio investments. Our analysis reveals that the voting bias in the ESC score significantly helps explain bilateral portfolio investments but only for non-professional investors, while no systematic effect is found for financial companies’ holdings. Our results undergo robustness checks related to changes in the voting system and to the inclusion of standard static indicators of cultural distance. Moreover, for non-professional investors, the effect of voting bias is larger for debt than for equities: it is consistent with an affinity/animosity bias directed to target foreign governments and then reflected in sovereign debt holdings. Our analysis highlights that financial decision making, especially for less sophisticated investors, may be driven not only by static economic and cultural proximity, but also by less predictable time-varying national subjective feelings.

Not All Shocks Are Created Equal: Assessing Heterogeneity in the Bank Lending Channel

We provide evidence that the yield impact of unconventional monetary policy is not a sufficient statistic to measure the strength of the bank lending channel of unconventional monetary policy. As a laboratory, we study three major positive events in the European sovereign debt crisis—the Greek debt restructuring (private sector involvement (PSI)), outright monetary transactions (OMT), and quantitative easing (QE)—using credit registry and security-level bank balance sheet data from Portugal, a country that was directly exposed to all three events. Even though the price of sovereign debt increased by substantially more after the PSI and OMT announcements, only QE led banks to reduce their net sovereign debt holdings and had statistically and economically significant effects on lending to firms and households. The differential effect on banks’ behavior reflects two forces. First, lower bank capitalization levels during the PSI and OMT episodes as well as disincentives to sell sovereign bonds because of their collateral value in the European Central Bank’s long-term refinancing operation facilities reduce the effectiveness of the recapitalization channel. Second, only QE involved direct asset purchases by the central bank and thereby induced a portfolio rebalancing channel from sovereign debt to loans. This paper was accepted by Victoria Ivashina, finance. Funding: The contribution by G. Nogueira to this paper has been prepared under the Lamfalussy Fellowship Program sponsored by the European Central Bank. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00104 .

Did small banks trade off lending with government bond purchases during the Sovereign debt crisis?

At the beginning of the decade, many banks in euro-area periphery countries shifted their portfolios from corporate lending towards sovereign debt holdings. According to some scholars, this was the result of the moral suasion exerted by domestic authorities; others suggest instead that it was the outcome of a free choice of weak banks that bet-for-resurrection increasing the holdings of risky, high yielding government bonds. Our analysis shows that the contemporaneous increase in banks’ total assets and the portfolio readjustment from loans to government bonds can be explained by a surge in the risk-premium required by banks on corporate lending. After briefly describing our hypothesis within a simple model of a bank’s portfolio choice, we test its empirical implications on a large sample of individual loan data granted by over 100 Italian small banks during the post sovereign debt crisis period (2012–2014). Our results provide convincing evidence in support of the hypothesis that the banks which increased the most their government bond holdings were also those which reduced more significantly their credit supply.

Can Central Banks Boost Corporate Investment? Evidence from ECB Liquidity Injections

AbstractLiquidity injections by central banks have become frequent and massive, but their real effects on corporate investment remain unclear. We examine the longer-term refinancing operations (LTROs) of the European Central Bank (ECB) during the eurozone sovereign crisis and show that greater LTRO funding to banks is associated with lower corporate investment. Riskier banks received funds through the LTROs and subsequently increased their holdings of risky sovereign debt. Corporate investment reductions are associated with these banks. Further, concurrent fiscal and regulatory policies impeded the effectiveness of the ECB liquidity injections. Our findings identify the contributing factors for these failures of monetary policy. (JEL E52, E58, G32)Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Missing in Action? Investor Responses to the War in Ukraine

Following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, many investors responded by unloading their Russian sovereign debt holdings. However, data from Bloomberg show that at the time of the 24 February Russian invasion of Ukraine, ESG funds – investment funds pursuing environmental, social and governance goals – still held at least $8.3 billion in Russian assets;1 and while more than a thousand companies have curtailed their Russian operations and over 500 are holding off on new investments in the wake of Russia’s invasion,2 investors have been accused of being ‘missing in action’.3

Fiscal policy and credit supply: The procurement channel

We show that banks’ lending exposure to firms with government procurement contracts can amplify the diabolic loop between sovereigns and banks. Using the fiscal austerity measures implemented during the 2010-2011 European sovereign debt crisis as a shock to government procurement, we find that banks with higher exposure to these firms reduced lending significantly more than banks with lower exposure, controlling for firm-specific credit demand. The reduction in credit supply is economically as important as the effect of banks’ sovereign debt holdings, and affected both firms with and without government contracts. Firms with lending relationships with affected banks experienced lower sales growth, assets growth, employment growth, and investment. This decrease in real economic activity is likely to reduce tax revenue, further amplifying the diabolic loop.

Sovereign debt holdings and banks’ credit risk: Evidence from the Eurozone

This paper investigates the direct effect of sovereign debt holding on banks’ credit risk. Using individual Eurozone listed banks’ information, we find that holding sovereign debt improves the level of banks’ credit risk, but this effect is reversed when the credit risk associated with such debt is taken into account. For this purpose, we consider three alternative sovereign debt holding proxies and two types of banks’ credit-risk measures, both forward- and backward-looking. We find that the transmission of credit risk from sovereign debt holdings to banks’ credit risk is only captured when forward-looking credit-risk measures, based on market data, are used.

Beyond Home Bias: International Portfolio Holdings and Information Heterogeneity

Abstract We show that international portfolios reflect the underlying heterogeneity in investors’ beliefs. Using data on the foreign sovereign debt holdings of European banks matched with their forecasts on future bond yields, we find that expecting higher returns and having more accurate forecasts are associated with larger bond holdings. Crucially, the elasticity of portfolio holdings to expected returns is increasing in the precision of the forecast, implying that investors optimally exploit comparative advantages in information production. We rationalize the results in a model in which partial information specialization arises endogenously by introducing a degree of unlearnable uncertainty about asset payoffs. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Bank foreign assets, government support and international spillover effects of sovereign rating events on bank stock prices

We study the international spillover effects of sovereign rating events on the stock returns of large banks in nonevent countries. Using S&P rating assessments from 1983 to 2018, we find that negative sovereign rating events spill over to foreign banks’ stock returns through the foreign asset holdings channel , especially if the rating shock to domestic banks is severe. Foreign sovereign debt holdings are not the only source to open such a channel. Negative sovereign rating events also spill over through foreign interbank exposures, but not through foreign claims to nonbank firms. We further find a previously undocumented positive side effect of government support to banks. The guarantee channel limits international spillover effects if banks with strong expected government support are located in countries with high sovereign ratings.

Sovereign debt ratings and the country composition of cross-border holdings of euro area sovereign debt

This paper documents how sovereign debt ratings shape the country composition of euro area cross-border holdings of euro area sovereign debt, using granular sectoral security holdings statistics for the period 2009Q4 until 2016Q1. Credit risk is the main risk for bond investors when investing in bonds that are issued in the same currency as the currency of the investor’s home country. Sovereign debt ratings provided by rating agencies give investors key information on the creditworthiness of governments. The results in this paper show that investors respond differently to credit ratings. In particular, we find that investors from core euro area countries respond more to credit ratings than investors from peripheral euro area countries. The results show that banks and insurance companies in core countries hold significantly more sovereign bonds of countries with higher credit ratings. In peripheral countries we do not find a positive relationship between ratings and sovereign bond holdings.

Sovereign-Bank Diabolic Loop: The Government Procurement Channel

We show that banks' lending exposure to firms with government procurement contracts can amplify the diabolic loop between sovereigns and banks. Using the fiscal austerity measures implemented during the 2010-2011 European sovereign debt crisis as a shock to government procurement, we find that banks with higher exposure to these firms reduced lending significantly more than banks with lower exposure, controlling for firm-specific credit demand. The reduction in credit supply is economically as important as the effect of banks' sovereign debt holdings, and affected both firms with and without government contracts. Firms with lending relationships with affected banks experienced lower sales growth, assets growth, employment growth, and investment. This decrease in real economic activity is likely to reduce tax revenue, further amplifying the diabolic loop.

Not All Shocks are Created Equal: Assessing Heterogeneity in the Bank Lending Channel

We provide evidence that the strength of the bank lending channel varies considerably across three major events in the European sovereign debt crisis - the Greek debt restructuring (PSI), outright monetary transactions (OMT), and quantitative easing (QE). We study how lending responds to each shock using detailed bank, firm, and household data from Portugal, a country that was directly exposed to the three events. While the price of sovereign debt securities increased in all three events, banks reduced sovereign debt holdings and realized accumulated capital gains only after QE. As a result, lending to final borrowers reacted more strongly to QE than to the PSI or OMT events. Our results suggest that asset purchases were more effective than signalling events at stimulating the bank lending channel. JEL Classification: E52, E58, G18, G21

From stress testing to systemic stress testing: The importance of macroprudential regulation

Stability of the banking system and macroprudential regulation are essential for healthy economic growth. In this paper we study the European bank network and its vulnerability to stressing different bank assets. The importance of macroprudential policy is emphasized by the inherent vulnerability of the financial system, high level of leverage, interconnectivity of system's entities, similar risk exposure of financial institutions, and susceptibility for systemic crisis propagation through the system. Current stress tests conducted by the European Banking Authority do not take in consideration the connectivity of the banks and the potential of one bank vulnerability spilling over to the rest of the system. We create a bipartite network with bank nodes on one hand and asset nodes on the other with weighted links between the two layers based on the level of different countries’ sovereign debt holdings by each bank. We propose a model for systemic risk propagation based on common bank exposures to specific asset classes. We introduce the similarity in asset distribution among the banks as a measure of bank closeness. We link the closeness of asset distributions to the likelihood that banks will experience a similar level and type of distress in a given adverse scenario. We analyze the dynamics of tier 1 capital ratio after stressing the bank network and find that while the system is able to withstand shocks for a wide range of parameters, we identify a critical threshold for both asset risk and bank response to a shock beyond which the system transitions from stable to unstable.

Original Sin and Deviations from Covered Interest Parity

Foreign holdings of sovereign debt in emerging markets (EMs) shift from foreign currency (FC) to local currency (LC), especially after the global financial crisis. We show that such a dissipation of original sin enlarges deviations from covered interest rate parity (CIP) in EMs, as FC debt is more important in transmitting global financial cycles to EMs than LC debt. We further provide evidence that FC debt is more efficient in tapering CIP deviations because it bypasses capital controls, circumvents high inflation, weak institution and asymmetric information, and enhances price discovery.

Optimal Bailouts and the Doom Loop with a Financial Network

Banks usually hold large amounts of domestic public debt which makes them vulnerable to their own sovereign’s default risk. At the same time, governments often resort to costly public bailouts when their domestic banking sector is in trouble. We investigate how the interbank network structure and the distribution of sovereign debt holdings jointly affect the optimal bailout policy in the presence of this doom loop. Rescuing banks with high domestic sovereign exposure is optimal if these banks are sufficiently central in the network, even though that requires larger bailout expenditures than rescuing low-exposure banks. Our findings imply that highly central banks can use exposure to their own government as a strategic tool to increase the likelihood of being bailed out. Our model thus illustrates how the doom loop exacerbates the too interconnected to fail problem in banking. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

International Evidence on the Determinants of Domestic Sovereign Debt Bank Holdings

In this paper, we examine the determinants of bank holdings of domestic sovereign debt with a panel dataset of 295 banks in 35 countries between 2002 and 2013. The findings indicate that the structure of bank ownership (domestic, foreign, or government ownership), the quality of governance, and the level of financial development of the countries in which banks operate all determine the level of home bias. Specifically, we find that domestic banks tend to hold more domestic sovereign debt relative to their foreign counterparts. We also provide evidence that home bias is even stronger when the domestic bank is controlled by its government. Moreover, home bias increases when government bonds are more risky, home governments are less effective, and when banking systems are less financially developed. Overall, we find that banks’ home bias in holding sovereign debt is an international phenomenon that is determined by both bank- and country-specific factors.

What Drives Sovereign Debt Portfolios of Banks in a Crisis Context?

We study determinants of sovereign portfolios of Spanish banks over a long time-span, starting in 2008. Our findings challenge the view that banks engaged in moral hazard strategies to exploit the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures. In particular, we show that being a weakly capitalized bank is not related to higher holdings of domestic sovereign debt. While a strong link is present between central bank liquidity support and sovereign holdings, opportunistic strategies or reach-for-yield behavior appear to be limited to the non-domestic sovereign portfolio of well-capitalized banks, which might have taken advantage of their higher risk-bearing capacity to gain exposure (via central bank liquidity) to the set of riskier sovereign bonds. Furthermore, we document that financial fragmentation in EMU markets has played a key role in reshaping sovereign portfolios of banks. Overall, our results have important implications for the ongoing discussion on the optimal design of the risk-weighted capital framework of banks.

The Impact of Sovereign Debt Ratings on Euro Area Cross-Border Holdings of Euro Area Sovereign Debt

This paper documents how sovereign debt ratings shape euro area cross-border holdings of euro area sovereign debt, using granular sectoral security holdings statistics for the period 2009Q4 until 2016Q1. Credit risk is the main risk for bond investors when investing in bonds that are issued in the same currency as the currency of the investor’s home country. Sovereign debt ratings provided by rating agencies give investors key information on the creditworthiness of governments. The results in this paper show that investors respond differently to credit ratings. In particular, we find that investors from core euro area countries respond more to credit ratings than investors from peripheral euro area countries. The results show that banks, insurance companies, pension funds and investment funds in core countries all significantly increase their bond holdings when credit ratings improve. In peripheral countries we document only a positive effect for pension funds and find no relationship between ratings and bond holdings for the other investor sectors. Finally, we find non-linearities in the relationship between bond holdings and credit ratings.

What Drives Sovereign Debt Portfolios of Banks in a Crisis Context?

We study determinants of sovereign portfolios of Spanish banks over a long time-span, starting in 2008. Our findings challenge the view that banks engaged in moral hazard strategies to exploit the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures. In particular, we show that being a weakly capitalized bank is not related to higher holdings of domestic sovereign debt. While a strong link is present between central bank liquidity support and sovereign holdings, opportunistic strategies or reach-for-yield behavior appear to be limited to the non-domestic sovereign portfolio of well-capitalized banks, which might have taken advantage of their higher risk-bearing capacity to gain exposure (via central bank liquidity) to the set of riskier sovereign bonds. Furthermore, we document that financial fragmentation in EMU markets has played a key role in reshaping sovereign portfolios of banks. Overall, our results have important implications for the ongoing discussion on the optimal design of the risk-weighted capital framework of banks.

What determines the share of non-resident public debt ownership? Evidence from Euro Area countries

This paper provides, for the first time, a detailed picture of the composition of public debt by type of holder (foreign vs. domestic) and type of holding institution for a set of 7 Euro Area countries between 1991Q1 and 2015Q4. In addition, it empirically inspects the determinants of nonresident public debt ownership, accounting for both domestic and external factors and paying special attention to the global financial crisis period. Using a previously unexplored dataset and by means of panel and country-specific time series regressions, we find that improved fiscal positions, systemic stress and financial volatility, a strong business cycle position, all increase share of public debt held by non-residents. Also, a higher share of monetary and financial institutions cross-border holdings of sovereign debt issued by the other Euro Area countries was correlated with higher share of public debt held by non-residents. Finally, results are robust to outliers inspection and other sensitivity checks.