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Economic Sentiment and Yield Spreads in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Eva Ferreira
  • M. Isabel Martínez Serna
  • Eliseo Navarro
  • Gonzalo Rubio

Abstract

According to Harvey (1988) , the forecasting ability of the term spread on economic growth is due to the fact that interest rates reflect investors' expectations about the future economic situation when deciding their plans for consumption and investment. Past literature has used ex post data on output or consumption growth as proxies for their expected value. In this paper, we employ a direct measure of economic agents' expectations, the Economic Sentiment Indicator elaborated by the European Commission, to test this hypothesis. Our results indicate that a linear combination of European yield spreads explains a surprising 93.7\% of the variability of the Economic Sentiment Indicator. This ability of yield spreads to capture economic agent expectations may be the actual reason for the predictive power of yield spreads about future business cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Eva Ferreira & M. Isabel Martínez Serna & Eliseo Navarro & Gonzalo Rubio, 2008. "Economic Sentiment and Yield Spreads in Europe," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(2), pages 206-221, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:eufman:v:14:y:2008:i:2:p:206-221
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-036X.2007.00389.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Estrella, Arturo & Mishkin, Frederic S., 1997. "The predictive power of the term structure of interest rates in Europe and the United States: Implications for the European Central Bank," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1375-1401, July.
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    8. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues & Sebastian Schich, 2003. "How Stable is the Predictive Power of the Yield Curve? Evidence from Germany and the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 629-644, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Heiden & Christian Klein & Bernhard Zwergel, 2013. "Beyond Fundamentals: Investor Sentiment and Exchange Rate Forecasting," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(3), pages 558-578, June.
    2. Gupta, Rangan & Risse, Marian & Volkman, David A. & Wohar, Mark E., 2019. "The role of term spread and pattern changes in predicting stock returns and volatility of the United Kingdom: Evidence from a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test using over 250 years of data," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 391-405.
    3. Dimitrios Subeniotis & Dimitrios Papadopoulos & Ioannis Tampakoudis & Athina Tampakoudi, 2011. "How Inflation, Market Capitalization, Industrial Production and the Economic Sentiment Indicator Affect the EU-12 Stock Markets," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 105-120.
    4. Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Fernández-Rodríguez, Fernando & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón, 2014. "The term structure of interest rates as predictor of stock returns: Evidence for the IBEX 35 during a bear market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 21-33.
    5. Andrzej Cieslik & Mahdi Ghodsi, 2021. "Economic sentiment indicators and foreign direct investment: Empirical evidence from European Union countries," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 168, pages 56-75.
    6. Keiber, Karl Ludwig & Samyschew, Helene, 2016. "The pricing of sentiment risk in European stock markets," Discussion Papers 384, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    7. André Filipe Guedes Almeida & Gabriel Caldas Montes, 2020. "Effects of crime and violence on business confidence: evidence from Rio de Janeiro," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 47(7), pages 1669-1688, May.
    8. Hyde, Stuart & Sherif, Mohamed, 2010. "Consumption asset pricing and the term structure," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 99-109, February.

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