IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbwps/20161930.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Credit spreads, economic activity and fragmentation

Author

Listed:
  • De Santis, Roberto A.

Abstract

Credit spreads may be jointly driven by developments that are orthogonal to the current state of the economy. We show that this unobserved systematic component is demanded to hedge against adverse economic fl?uctuations. Using either yield-to-maturity spreads or asset swap spreads for 2345 Eurobonds across euro area non-fi?nancial industries, we estimate a market-wide relative excess bond premium - a function of the unobserved systematic component -, which can predict real economic activity, the stock market and survey-based economic sentiment. This premium was highly negative between March 2003 and June 2007 in all bond segments and turned positive since then up to the launch of the 3-years long term re?financing operations in December 2011, predicting the ?financial crisis and the two recessions. Finally, using the countries?excess bond premia, we fi?nd that fragmentation risk increased sharply after Lehman?s bankruptcy and during the sovereign debt crisis. JEL Classification: C32, F36, G12, G15

Suggested Citation

  • De Santis, Roberto A., 2016. "Credit spreads, economic activity and fragmentation," Working Paper Series 1930, European Central Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20161930
    Note: 185689
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1930.en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zaghini, Andrea, 2016. "Fragmentation and heterogeneity in the euro-area corporate bond market: Back to normal?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 51-61.
    2. Francis A. Longstaff & Sanjay Mithal & Eric Neis, 2005. "Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2213-2253, October.
    3. Thompson, Samuel B., 2011. "Simple formulas for standard errors that cluster by both firm and time," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 1-10, January.
    4. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-248, April.
    5. Eduardo A. Cavallo & Patricio Valenzuela, 2010. "The determinants of corporate risk in emerging markets: an option-adjusted spread analysis," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 59-74.
    6. Jonas Dovern & Ulrich Fritsche & Jiri Slacalek, 2012. "Disagreement Among Forecasters in G7 Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1081-1096, November.
    7. Duffie, Darrell & Lando, David, 2001. "Term Structures of Credit Spreads with Incomplete Accounting Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(3), pages 633-664, May.
    8. √Íscar Jord√Ä & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2013. "When Credit Bites Back," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(s2), pages 3-28, December.
    9. Jon Faust & Simon Gilchrist & Jonathan H. Wright & Egon Zakrajšsek, 2013. "Credit Spreads as Predictors of Real-Time Economic Activity: A Bayesian Model-Averaging Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1501-1519, December.
    10. Cameron, A. Colin & Gelbach, Jonah B. & Miller, Douglas L., 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249.
    11. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    12. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2018. "Diagnostic Expectations and Credit Cycles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(1), pages 199-227, February.
    13. Guillaume Horny & Simone Manganelli & Benoit Mojon, 2018. "Measuring Financial Fragmentation in the Euro Area Corporate Bond Market," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, October.
    14. Matthew Baron & Wei Xiong, 2017. "Credit Expansion and Neglected Crash Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 713-764.
    15. Hodrick, Robert J, 1992. "Dividend Yields and Expected Stock Returns: Alternative Procedures for Inference and Measurement," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 357-386.
    16. Dick-Nielsen, Jens & Feldhütter, Peter & Lando, David, 2012. "Corporate bond liquidity before and after the onset of the subprime crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 471-492.
    17. Edwin J. Elton & Martin J. Gruber & Deepak Agrawal & Christopher Mann, 2001. "Explaining the Rate Spread on Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 247-277, February.
    18. Darrell Duffie & Andreas Eckner & Guillaume Horel & Leandro Saita, 2009. "Frailty Correlated Default," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2089-2123, October.
    19. John Y. Campbell & Glen B. Taksler, 2003. "Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2321-2350, December.
    20. Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2012. "Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1029-1061, April.
    21. Houweling, Patrick & Mentink, Albert & Vorst, Ton, 2005. "Comparing possible proxies of corporate bond liquidity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1331-1358, June.
    22. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lumsdaine, Robin L., 2002. "Dating the integration of world equity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 203-247, August.
    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. Pierre Collin-Dufresn & Robert S. Goldstein & J. Spencer Martin, 2001. "The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2177-2207, December.
    25. Jarrow, Robert A. & Turnbull, Stuart M., 2000. "The intersection of market and credit risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 271-299, January.
    26. David López-Salido & Jeremy C. Stein & Egon Zakrajšek, 2017. "Credit-Market Sentiment and the Business Cycle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1373-1426.
    27. Gilchrist, Simon & Yankov, Vladimir & Zakrajsek, Egon, 2009. "Credit market shocks and economic fluctuations: Evidence from corporate bond and stock markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 471-493, May.
    28. Sarig, Oded & Warga, Arthur, 1989. " Some Empirical Estimates of the Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(5), pages 1351-1360, December.
    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. Xiaoqing Fu & Matthew C. Li & Philip Molyneux, 2021. "Credit default swap spreads: market conditions, firm performance, and the impact of the 2007–2009 financial crisis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(5), pages 2203-2225, May.
    2. Zaghini, Andrea, 2019. "The CSPP at work: Yield heterogeneity and the portfolio rebalancing channel," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 282-297.
    3. Satoshi Tezuka & Yoichi Matsubayashi, 2018. "Credit Spread, Financial Market and Real Activities under Financial Instability: Empirical Evidence with MS-SBVAR," Discussion Papers 1812, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.

    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. Santis, Roberto A. De, 2018. "Unobservable systematic risk, economic activity and stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 51-69.
    2. De Santis, Roberto A., 2018. "Unobservable country bond premia and fragmentation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-25.
    3. Maalaoui Chun, Olfa & Dionne, Georges & François, Pascal, 2014. "Credit spread changes within switching regimes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 41-55.
    4. Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Takaoka, Sumiko, 2022. "The credit spread curve distribution and economic fluctuations in Japan," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    5. Han-Hsing Lee, 2020. "Distress risk, product market competition, and corporate bond yield spreads," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1093-1135, October.
    6. Annaert, Jan & De Ceuster, Marc & Van Roy, Patrick & Vespro, Cristina, 2013. "What determines Euro area bank CDS spreads?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 444-461.
    7. Zaghini, Andrea, 2017. "A tale of fragmentation: Corporate funding in the euro-area bond market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 59-68.
    8. David López-Salido & Jeremy C. Stein & Egon Zakrajšek, 2017. "Credit-Market Sentiment and the Business Cycle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1373-1426.
    9. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi & Emil Verner, 2017. "Household Debt and Business Cycles Worldwide," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1755-1817.
    10. Stephanie Heck, 2022. "Corporate bond yields and returns: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(2), pages 179-201, June.
    11. Michael Bleaney & Veronica Veleanu, 2017. "Currency risk in corporate bond spreads in the eurozone," Discussion Papers 2017/07, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    12. Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Takaoka, Sumiko, 2020. "No-arbitrage determinants of credit spread curves under the unconventional monetary policy regime in Japan," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    13. Dragon Tang & Hong Yan, 2006. "Macroeconomic Conditions, Firm Characteristics, and Credit Spreads," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 29(3), pages 177-210, June.
    14. 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).
    15. Huang, Xiaoyong & Yu, Cong & Chen, Yunping & Jia, Fei & Xu, Xiangyun, 2022. "Rigid payment breaking, default spread and yields of Chinese treasury bonds," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    16. Kaviani, Mahsa S. & Kryzanowski, Lawrence & Maleki, Hosein & Savor, Pavel, 2020. "Policy uncertainty and corporate credit spreads," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(3), pages 838-865.
    17. Brandão-Marques, Luis & Chen, Qianying & Raddatz, Claudio & Vandenbussche, Jérôme & Xie, Peichu, 2022. "The riskiness of credit allocation and financial stability," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    18. Becchetti, Leonardo & Carpentieri, Andrea & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2009. "The determinants of option-adjusted delta credit spreads : a comparative analysis of the United States, the United Kingdom and the euro area," Research Discussion Papers 34/2009, Bank of Finland.
    19. Guerrieri, V. & Uhlig, H., 2016. "Housing and Credit Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1427-1496, Elsevier.
    20. Serena Ng & Jonathan H. Wright, 2013. "Facts and Challenges from the Great Recession for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Modeling," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1120-1154, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate credit spreads; forecasts; fragmentation; sentiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ecb:ecbwps:20161930. 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: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.html .

    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.