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Mind the Gap: Disentangling Credit and Liquidity in Risk Spreads

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  • Krista Schwarz

Abstract

Euro-area sovereign bond and interbank interest rate spreads spiked in the 2007–2009 Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent European Debt Crisis, substantially elevating financing costs. I use a model-free measure of market liquidity to precisely identify the relative contribution of credit versus liquidity to spreads in these episodes. In the Financial Crisis, liquidity is paramount, accounting for 36% of trough-to-peak widening, after controlling for credit. However, default risk becomes relatively more important to sovereign spreads in the Debt Crisis. Aggregate bond liquidity explains a substantial portion of interbank spreads throughout the sample.

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  • Krista Schwarz, 2019. "Mind the Gap: Disentangling Credit and Liquidity in Risk Spreads," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(3), pages 557-597.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:revfin:v:23:y:2019:i:3:p:557-597.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rof/rfy034
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    8. Corradin, Stefano & Grimm, Niklas & Schwaab, Bernd, 2021. "Euro area sovereign bond risk premia during the Covid-19 pandemic," Working Paper Series 2561, European Central Bank.
    9. Debrun, Xavier & Masuch, Klaus & Ferrero, Guiseppe & Vansteenkiste, Isabel & Ferdinandusse, Marien & von Thadden, Leopold & Hauptmeier, Sebastian & Alloza, Mario & Derouen, Chloé & Bańkowski, Krzyszto, 2021. "Monetary-fiscal policy interactions in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 273, European Central Bank.
    10. Hattori, Takahiro, 2021. "Noise as a liquidity measure: Evidence from the JGB market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Sifat, Imtiaz & Zarei, Alireza & Hosseini, Seyedmehdi & Bouri, Elie, 2022. "Interbank liquidity risk transmission to large emerging markets in crisis periods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    12. Markus Herrmann & Martin Hibbeln, 2023. "Trading and liquidity in the catastrophe bond market," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(2), pages 283-328, June.
    13. Corradin, Stefano & Schwaab, Bernd, 2023. "Euro area sovereign bond risk premia before and during the Covid-19 pandemic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    14. Cottrell, Simon & Yu, Xiao & Delpachitra, Sarath & Ma, Yihong, 2021. "What determines wholesale funding costs of the global systemically important banks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    15. Ajay Kumar Mishra & Bhavik Parikh & Ronald W. Spahr, 2021. "Contemporaneous linkages: Funding liquidity and stock market spirals," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 5912-5929, October.
    16. Gutkowski, Violeta A., 2021. "Sovereign illiquidity and recessions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    17. Gómez-Puig, Marta & Pieterse-Bloem, Mary & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón, 2023. "Dynamic connectedness between credit and liquidity risks in euro area sovereign debt markets," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    18. Adeel Riaz & Assad Ullah & Li Xingong, 2024. "Does trade policy uncertainty in China and USA matter for key financial markets?," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 1-30, April.
    19. David Skovmand & Jacob Bjerre Skov, 2022. "Decomposing LIBOR in Transition: Evidence from the Futures Markets," Papers 2201.06930, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2022.
    20. Leal, Diego & Stanhouse, Bryan & Stock, Duane, 2020. "Estimating the term structure of corporate bond liquidity premiums: An analysis of default free bank bonds," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    21. Marta Gómez-Puig & Mary Pieterse-Bloem & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero, 2022. ""Dynamic connectedness between credit and liquidity risks in EMU sovereign debt markets"," IREA Working Papers 202217, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Oct 2022.
    22. Riccardo Poli & Marco Taboga, 2021. "A composite indicator of sovereign bond market liquidity in the euro area," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 663, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    23. Pick-Schen Yip & Wee-Yeap Lau & Robert Brooks, 2023. "The Liquidity Effect of the U.S. QE on Sovereign Yield Spreads of Commodity-Exporting Countries," Commodities, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-16, April.
    24. Yihong Ma, Simon Cottrell, Sarath Delpachitra, Xiao Yu, Ping Jiang, and Quan Tran Ha Minh, 2023. "What Drives Credit Spreads of Oil Companies? Evidence from the Upstream, Integrated and Downstream Industries," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Market liquidity; Interbank credit; Money markets; Interest rates; Financial crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

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