IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v136y2022ics0378426622000139.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How new Fed corporate bond programs cushioned the Covid-19 recession

Author

Listed:
  • Bordo, Michael D.
  • Duca, John V.

Abstract

In the financial crisis and recession induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, many investment-grade firms became unable to borrow from securities markets. In response, the Fed not only reopened its commercial paper funding facility but also announced it would purchase newly issued and seasoned corporate bonds rated as investment grade before the Covid pandemic. We assess the effectiveness of this program using long sample periods, spanning the Great Depression through the Great and Covid Recessions. Findings indicate that the announcement of corporate bond backstop facilities helped stop risk premia from rising further than they had by late-March 2020. In doing so, these backstop facilities limited the role of external finance premia in amplifying the macroeconomic impact of the Covid pandemic. Nevertheless, the corporate bond programs blend the roles of the Federal Reserve in conducting monetary policy via its balance sheet, acting as a lender of last resort, and pursuing credit policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Bordo, Michael D. & Duca, John V., 2022. "How new Fed corporate bond programs cushioned the Covid-19 recession," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:136:y:2022:i:c:s0378426622000139
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2022.106413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426622000139
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2022.106413?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael D. Bordo & John V. Duca, 2020. "How New Fed Corporate Bond Programs Dampened the Financial Accelerator in the COVID-19 Recession," Working Papers 2029, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    2. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    3. Antonio Falato & Itay Goldstein & Ali Hortaçsu, 2020. "Financial Fragility in the COVID-19 Crisis: The Case of Investment Funds in Corporate Bond Markets," Working Papers 2020-98, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    4. Jaffee, Dwight M., 1975. "Cyclical variations in the risk structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 309-325, July.
    5. Duca, John V. & Ling, David C., 2020. "The other (commercial) real estate boom and bust: The effects of risk premia and regulatory capital arbitrage," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    6. John V. Duca, 2013. "The Money Market Meltdown of the Great Depression," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(2-3), pages 493-504, March.
    7. Duca, John V., 2013. "Did the commercial paper funding facility prevent a Great Depression style money market meltdown?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 747-758.
    8. Aisling Cleary & Joyce Kwok & Robert G. Valletta, 2009. "New highs in unemployment insurance claims," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue sep8.
    9. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    10. Bagehot, Walter, 1873. "Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number bagehot1873.
    11. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1963. "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie63-1, March.
    12. Bernanke, Ben S, 1983. "Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in Propagation of the Great Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 257-276, June.
    13. Bordo, Michael D., 2014. "Rules for a lender of last resort: An historical perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 126-134.
    14. Sumit Agarwal & Jacqueline Barrett & Mariacristina De Nardi, 2011. "The asset-backed securities markets, the crisis, and TALF," Profitwise, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Apr, pages 8-18.
    15. Duca, John V. & Murphy, Anthony, 2013. "Would a Bagehot style corporate bond backstop have helped counter the Great Recession?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 351-353.
    16. Valentin Haddad & Alan Moreira & Tyler Muir, 2020. "When Selling Becomes Viral: Disruptions in Debt Markets in the COVID-19 Crisis and the Fed’s Response," NBER Working Papers 27168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Patrick Bolton & Martin Oehmke, 2015. "Should Derivatives Be Privileged in Bankruptcy?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2353-2394, December.
    18. Bernanke, Ben S, 1995. "The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression: A Comparative Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 1-28, February.
    19. John V. Duca, 1999. "What credit market indicators tell us," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q III, pages 2-13.
    20. Frederic S. Mishkin & Eugene N. White, 2002. "U.S. Stock Market Crashes and Their Aftermath: Implications for Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 8992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Simon Gilchrist & Bin Wei & Vivian Z. Yue & Egon Zakrajšek, 2024. "The Fed Takes on Corporate Credit Risk: An Analysis of the Efficacy of the SMCCF," Working Papers 24-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    22. O'Hara, Maureen & Zhou, Xing (Alex), 2021. "Anatomy of a liquidity crisis: Corporate bonds in the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 46-68.
    23. Simon Gilchrist & Egon Zakrajsek, 2012. "Credit Spreads and Business Cycle Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1692-1720, June.
    24. Stefania D'Amico & Vamsi Kurakula & Stephen M. Lee, 2020. "Impacts of the Fed Corporate Credit Facilities through the Lenses of ETFs and CDX," Working Paper Series WP-2020-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    25. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1991. "Asymmetric Information and Financial Crises: A Historical Perspective," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 69-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Gary Gorton & Andrew Metrick, 2013. "The Federal Reserve and Panic Prevention: The Roles of Financial Regulation and Lender of Last Resort," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 45-64, Fall.
    27. Duca, John V., 2017. "The Great Depression versus the Great Recession in the U.S.: How fiscal, monetary, and financial polices compare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 50-64.
    28. Simon Gilchrist & Bin Wei & Vivian Z. Yue & Egon Zakrajšek, 2020. "The Fed Takes On Corporate Credit Risk: An Analysis of the Efficacy of the SMCCF," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2020-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    29. Falato, Antonio & Goldstein, Itay & Hortaçsu, Ali, 2021. "Financial fragility in the COVID-19 crisis: The case of investment funds in corporate bond markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 35-52.
    30. Bolton, Patrick & Oehmke, Martin, 2015. "Should derivatives be privileged in bankruptcy?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 84512, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    31. Ben Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1990. "Financial Fragility and Economic Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 87-114.
    32. Michael D. Bordo, 2008. "An Historical Perspective on the Crisis of 2007-2008," NBER Working Papers 14569, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Johansen, Soren, 1995. "Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774501, Decembrie.
    34. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    35. Charles T. Carlstrom & Timothy S. Fuerst, 2005. "Considerable period of time: the case of signaling future policy," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Nov.
    36. Bart Hobijn & Philip Hans Franses & Marius Ooms, 2004. "Generalizations of the KPSS‐test for stationarity," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 58(4), pages 483-502, November.
    37. Jean-Philippe Laforte, 2018. "Overview of the Changes to the FRB/US Model (2018)," FEDS Notes 2018-12-07, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Boubaker, Sabri & Goodell, John W. & Kumar, Satish & Sureka, Riya, 2023. "COVID-19 and finance scholarship: A systematic and bibliometric analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. Degryse, Hans & Huylebroek, Cédric, 2023. "Fiscal support and banks’ loan loss provisions during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    3. Bordo, Michael D. & Duca, John V., 2023. "How the new fed municipal bond facility capped municipal-treasury yield spreads in the Covid-19 recession," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael D. Bordo & John V. Duca, 2020. "How New Fed Corporate Bond Programs Dampened the Financial Accelerator in the COVID-19 Recession," Working Papers 2029, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    2. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    3. Duca, John V., 2017. "The Great Depression versus the Great Recession in the U.S.: How fiscal, monetary, and financial polices compare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 50-64.
    4. Valentin Haddad & Alan Moreira & Tyler Muir, 2021. "When Selling Becomes Viral: Disruptions in Debt Markets in the COVID-19 Crisis and the Fed’s Response [Funding value adjustments]," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5309-5351.
    5. Duca, John V., 2016. "How capital regulation and other factors drive the role of shadow banking in funding short-term business credit," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(S1), pages 10-24.
    6. Boyarchenko, Nina & Kovner, Anna & Shachar, Or, 2022. "It’s what you say and what you buy: A holistic evaluation of the corporate credit facilities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 695-731.
    7. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2022. "Financial Intermediation and the Economy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2022-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    8. von Peter, Goetz, 2009. "Asset prices and banking distress: A macroeconomic approach," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 298-319, September.
    9. Bordo, Michael D. & Duca, John V., 2023. "How the new fed municipal bond facility capped municipal-treasury yield spreads in the Covid-19 recession," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    10. Duca, John V., 2013. "Did the commercial paper funding facility prevent a Great Depression style money market meltdown?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 747-758.
    11. Goldstein, Michael A. & Namin, Elmira Shekari, 2023. "Corporate bond liquidity and yield spreads: A review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    12. Bordo, Michael D. & Haubrich, Joseph G., 2010. "Credit crises, money and contractions: An historical view," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 1-18, January.
    13. Tyler Muir, 2017. "Financial Crises and Risk Premia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 765-809.
    14. Mahyar Kargar & Benjamin Lester & David Lindsay & Shuo Liu & Pierre-Olivier Weill & Diego Zúñiga, 2021. "Corporate Bond Liquidity during the COVID-19 Crisis [The day coronavirus nearly broke the financial markets]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5352-5401.
    15. Emmanuel Carré & Laurent Le Maux, 2023. "Bernanke and Kindleberger on financial crises, 1978–2003," Post-Print hal-04201556, HAL.
    16. Zaghini, Andrea, 2023. "Unconventional green," CFS Working Paper Series 710, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    17. Camelia Minoiu & Rebecca Zarutskie & Andrei Zlate, 2021. "Motivating Banks to Lend? Credit Spillover Effects of the Main Street Lending Program," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-078, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. John V. Duca & Lilit Popoyan & Susan M. Wachter, 2019. "Real Estate And The Great Crisis: Lessons For Macroprudential Policy," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(1), pages 121-137, January.
    19. Goetz von Peter, 2003. "A Unified Approach to Credit Crunches, Financial Instability, and Banking Crises," Macroeconomics 0312006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Goetz von Peter, 2004. "Asset Prices and Banking Distress: A Macroeconomic Approach," Finance 0411034, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial crises; Federal Reserve; Credit easing; Lender of last resort; Corporate bonds; Corporate bond facility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • E53 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Deposit Insurance
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:136:y:2022:i:c:s0378426622000139. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.