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Investment Commonality across Insurance Companies : Fire Sale Risk and Corporate Yield Spreads

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Insurance companies often follow highly correlated investment strategies. As major investors in corporate bonds, their investment commonalities subject investors to fire-sale risk when regulatory restrictions prompt widespread divestment of a bond following a rating downgrade. Reflective of fire-sale risk, clustering of insurance companies in a bond has significant explanatory power for yield spreads, controlling for liquidity, credit risk and other factors. The effect of fire-sale risk on bond yield spreads is more evident for bonds held to a greater extent by capital-constrained insurance companies, those with ratings closer to NAIC risk-categories with larger capital requirements, and during the financial crisis.

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  • Vikram Nanda & Wei Wu & Xing Zhou, 2017. "Investment Commonality across Insurance Companies : Fire Sale Risk and Corporate Yield Spreads," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-069, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2017-69
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2017.069
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    Cited by:

    1. Aragon, George O. & Kim, Min S., 2023. "Fire sale risk and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(3), pages 578-609.
    2. Girardi, Giulio & Hanley, Kathleen W. & Nikolova, Stanislava & Pelizzon, Loriana & Sherman, Mila Getmansky, 2021. "Portfolio similarity and asset liquidation in the insurance industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 69-96.
    3. Cici, Gjergji & Zhang, Pei (Alex), 2021. "On the valuation skills of corporate bond mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 21-05, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    4. Martijn Boermans & Viacheslav Keshkov, 2018. "The impact of the ECB asset purchases on the European bond market structure: Granular evidence on ownership concentration," DNB Working Papers 590, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    5. Ge, Shan & Weisbach, Michael S., 2021. "The role of financial conditions in portfolio choices: The case of insurers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 803-830.
    6. Schlütter, Sebastian & Fianu, Emmanuel Senyo & Gründl, Helmut, 2022. "Responsible investments in life insurers' optimal portfolios under solvency constraints," ICIR Working Paper Series 45/22, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    7. Chen, Fan & Ramaya, Krishnan & Wu, Wei, 2020. "The wealth effects of merger and acquisition announcements on bondholders: New evidence from the over-the-counter market," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    8. Federico Apicella & Raffaele Gallo & Giovanni Guazzarotti, 2022. "Insurers' investments before and after the Covid-19 outbreak," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1363, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. John M Griffin & Jordan Nickerson, 2023. "Are CLO Collateral and Tranche Ratings Disconnected?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(6), pages 2319-2360.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Capital constraints; Corporate bonds; Credit rating; Fire sales; Insurance companies; Regulation; yield spreads;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

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