Supply Of Safe Assets Research Articles

Quantitative Easing and Safe Asset Scarcity: Evidence from International Bond Safety Premia

Through large-scale asset purchases, widely known as quantitative easing (QE), central banks around the world have reduced the available supply of safe assets. We examine the effects of the European Central Bank’s asset purchases in the 2015-2021 period on an international panel of bond safety premia from four highly rated countries: Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. We find statistically significant negative effects for all four countries. This points to a novel and important international spillover channel of QE programs to bond safety premia that operates via changes in the perceived relative scarcity of safe assets across international bond markets.

Is real estate considered a safe asset in East Asia?

ABSTRACT The demand for safe assets has increased in recent years. However, the supply of safe assets has remained concentrated in a few Western developed countries, and it cannot meet the demand for safe assets in East Asia. For historical and cultural reasons, we believe that real estate serves as safe assets in East Asia. To verify this issue, this study employs two sets of data, which, respectively, include three East Asian countries and eight Western countries, from 1998 to 2019 to construct two panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) models that we use to determine the differences between the housing markets in East Asian and Western nations. The empirical results show that house prices in East Asia tend to increase with economic policy uncertainty (EPU), indicating that real estate is a good hedge against uncertainty. In Western countries, however, real estate does not hold its value well in times of uncertainty. Therefore, this study confirms that real estate is a safe asset in East Asia, but not in Western countries. To lower the excessive price of houses in East Asian countries, this study recommends increasing the supply of other safe assets.

The Stability of Safe Asset Production

<ns2:p>A safe asset is a debt instrument that is expected to maintain its value over time, especially during adverse systemic events. Changes in the supply of safe assets can have a significant influence on short-term, risk-free interest rates. (Ferreira & Shousha, 2020) "When the scarcity of safe asset[s] is acute, the zero lower bound (ZLB) becomes binding and the safe asset market equilibrates via a reduction in output…"</ns2:p>

Private Supply of Safe Assets: Shadow Banks Versus Traditional Banks

We show that the creation of private safe assets by shadow banks can decrease traditional banks' supply of safe assets. The 2014-2016 money fund reform created a large demand shock for safe assets, to which Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) responded, expanding their balance sheets and increasing their issuance of short-term debt. To reduce the resulting interest rate risk, FHLBs shortened the repricing of their loans to banks. Focusing on small banks for which the reform was exogenous, we use a novel instrumental variable strategy to show that shadow banks create safe assets at the expense of banks' deposits.

Supply of Private Safe Assets: Interplay of Shadow and Traditional Banks

We show that the creation of private safe assets by shadow banks can crowd out traditional banks' supply of safe assets. The 2014-2016 money market fund reform created a large demand shock for government- or government-like safe assets. Shadow banks responded, and in particular, Federal Home Loans Banks (FHLBs) increased their issuance of short-term safe debt. While increasing their balance sheet, FHLBs managed their interest rate risk by mainly increasing their supply of highly interest-rate sensitive loans to their members. As banks differ in their interest rate risk-management, not all could take advantage of increased supply of FHLB loans. We use this differential borrowing in response to the money market reform to study the effect of increased supply of safe assets by FHLBs on banks' balance sheets. We find that banks use FHLB borrowing as a perfect substitute for deposit financing. The substitution of safe debt with FHLB borrowing does not go along with an overall increase in the balance sheet and therefore has no lending effect. This finding has important implications for the transmission of monetary policy as well as broader economic activities. If shadow banks create safe assets at the expense of traditional banks' deposits, then there will be a minimal effect on the total funding available for households and firms from banks and shadow banks.

The Supply of Safe Assets and Fiscal Policy

Beyond fleeting references, there is surprisingly little analysis about the interrelationship between fiscal policy and safe assets. This study analyses this interrelationship and argues that, at a certain point, more public debt will not “buy” more safety: countries face a kind of “safe assets Laffer curve”, with a maximum amount of safe assets at some level of indebtedness. The position and stability of this curve depend on a number of national and international factors, including international risk appetite and the quantitative easing policies implemented by central banks. The study also finds evidence of declining safe assets, as reflected in government debt ratings.

The Safe Assets Shortage Conundrum

A safe asset is a simple debt instrument that is expected to preserve its value during adverse systemic events. The supply of safe assets, private and public, has historically been concentrated in a small number of advanced economies, most prominently the United States. Over the last few decades, with minor cyclical interruptions, the supply of safe assets has not kept up with global demand. The reason is straightforward: the collective growth rate of the advanced economies that produce safe assets has been lower than the world's growth rate, which has been driven disproportionately by the high growth rate of high-saving emerging economies such as China. The signature of this growing shortage is a steady increase in the price of safe assets; equivalently, global safe interest rates must decline, as has been the case since the 1980s. The early literature, brought to light by Ben Bernanke's famous “savings glut” speech of 2005, focused on a general shortage of assets without isolating its safe asset component. The distinction, however, has become increasingly important over time, particularly in the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis and its sequels. We begin by describing the main facts and macroeconomic implications of safe asset shortages. Faced with such a structural conundrum, what are the likely short- to medium-term escape valves? We analyze four of them, each with its own macroeconomic and financial trade-offs.

The Informational Content of SMP Deposit Auctions in Forecasting Short-Term Repurchase Agreement Interest Rates (Dissertation)

This paper analyzes the term deposit sterilizing open market operations conducted by the Eurosystem between May 2010 and June 2014 in the context of the Securities Market Program (SMP). The SMP operations involved outright purchases of government debt securities in the secondary market with a view of lowering the credit spreads of stressed Euro periphery countries after the eruption of the Greek sovereign debt crisis in 2010. I investigate the details of the program, the execution of the term deposit auctions and their effects on short-term repurchase agreement (repo) interest rates. To do this I employ a stochastic model to determine how market participants bid at the auctions as well as several econometric models to look into how various monetary and market rates such as short-term repo, the MRO and the SMP deposit rates affect each other. The key result is that information extracted from SMP deposit auctions can be used by the central bank in order to create more accurate conditional forecasts of short-term money market interest rates, information that is not present in other regular Open Market Operations conducted by the Eurosystem. Lastly the case for an SMP debt certificate is presented which can increase the supply of safe assets in the Euro money market and help in the transmission of monetary policy.

Understanding the Impact of Large Scale Asset Purchases on Long-Term Government Bond Yields: The Quantitative Easing Paradox

Empirical event studies estimate that Large Scale Asset Purchases (LSAP) push down long-term interest rates through the portfolio balance channel. However, since portfolio reallocation takes time to materialise, a longer horizon may be more appropriate to assess the effects of LSAP. With a longer horizon in mind, a deep look at historical experiences leads to the quantitative easing paradox: LSAP raise long-term government bond yields, while a premature exit lowers long-term government bond yields. To solve this puzzle, this paper argues that LSAP mainly raise the government term premium. In the wake of a severe economic and financial crisis, the period of heightened risk aversion and the safe asset shortage weigh on the government term premium. Through the portfolio balance channel, LSAP increase the supply of safe assets and decrease the demand of money at the same time, thereby lifting the government term premium. Finally, a new econometric method introduced by Brodersen et al. (2014), which infers the causal impact of LSAP on the term premium, confirms that LSAP have a significant positive effect on long-term government bond yields.

Strengthening the International Monetary System - Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

The current IMS has survived for over forty years, underpinning strong growth in GDP and in the international exchange of goods and capital, one of its core objectives. As a result, interdependence among the world’s economies has grown dramatically, making the existence of a sound system ever more important. At the same time, the system has exhibited many symptoms of instability—frequent crises, persistent current account imbalances and exchange rate misalignments, volatile capital flows and currencies, and unprecedentedly large reserve accumulation. These symptoms have come to a head since the 2008 crisis and brought renewed international momentum to the idea of attempting to reform the IMS. Yet the debate so far suggests little consensus on the underlying problems, let alone on the solutions. This paper identifies four root causes to these problems: inadequate global adjustment mechanisms to prevent inconsistent or imprudent policies among systemic countries; lack a comprehensive oversight framework for growing cross-border capital flows, covering both source and recipient countries; inadequate systemic liquidity provision mechanisms; and structural challenges in the supply of safe assets.