IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v121y2013i3p346-355.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

High yield spreads, real economic activity, and the financial accelerator

Author

Listed:
  • De Pace, Pierangelo
  • Weber, Kyle D.

Abstract

We study the leading properties of 30 US high yield spreads for economic growth between 1996 and 2012 and show that they disappeared in the second half of the 2000s. Our empirical findings demonstrate the unreliability of high yield spreads as leading indicators and cast doubts on the existence of a strong and functioning financial accelerator in recent years.

Suggested Citation

  • De Pace, Pierangelo & Weber, Kyle D., 2013. "High yield spreads, real economic activity, and the financial accelerator," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 346-355.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:121:y:2013:i:3:p:346-355
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2013.08.027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517651300400X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.08.027?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. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1995. "Inside the Black Box: The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 27-48, Fall.
    2. 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.
    3. Pierangelo De Pace, 2013. "Gross Domestic Product Growth Predictions Through The Yield Spread: Time‐Variation And Structural Breaks," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-24, January.
    4. Mody, Ashoka & Taylor, Mark P., 2004. "Financial predictors of real activity and the financial accelerator," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 167-172, February.
    5. Ashoka Mody & Mark P. Taylor, 2003. "The High-Yield Spread as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity: Evidence of a Financial Accelerator for the United States," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-3.
    6. Gertler, Mark & Lown, Cara S, 1999. "The Information in the High-Yield Bond Spread for the Business Cycle: Evidence and Some Implications," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 15(3), pages 132-150, Autumn.
    7. Frank K. Reilly & David J. Wright & James A. Gentry, 2009. "Historic Changes in the High Yield Bond Market," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 21(3), pages 65-79, June.
    8. De Pace, Pierangelo & Weber, Kyle D., 2016. "The time-varying leading properties of the high yield spread in the United States," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 203-230.
    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. Seitz, Franz & Baumann, Ursel & Albuquerque, Bruno, 2015. "The information content of money and credit for US activity," Working Paper Series 1803, European Central Bank.
    2. Paccagnini, Alessia, 2016. "The macroeconomic determinants of the US term structure during the Great Moderation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PA), pages 216-225.
    3. Kiss, Tamás & Nguyen, Hoang & Österholm, Pär, 2022. "The Relation between the High-Yield Bond Spread and the Unemployment Rate in the Euro Area," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    4. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Bouri, Elie & Hernandez, Jose Areola & Roubaud, David, 2021. "Causal nexus between crude oil and US corporate bonds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 577-589.
    5. Evgenidis, Anastasios & Papadamou, Stephanos & Siriopoulos, Costas, 2020. "The yield spread's ability to forecast economic activity: What have we learned after 30 years of studies?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 221-232.
    6. Yutaka Kurihara, 2014. "Does High Yield Spread Dampen Economic Growth?: The Case of US-Japan," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 3(2), pages 01-09, April.
    7. repec:ecb:ecbwps:20141803 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Albuquerque, Bruno & Baumann, Ursel & Seitz, Franz, 2016. "What does money and credit tell us about real activity in the United States?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 328-347.
    9. De Pace, Pierangelo & Weber, Kyle D., 2016. "The time-varying leading properties of the high yield spread in the United States," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 203-230.
    10. Kühl, Michael, 2014. "The financial accelerator and market-based debt instruments: A role for maturities?," Discussion Papers 08/2014, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    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. De Pace, Pierangelo & Weber, Kyle D., 2016. "The time-varying leading properties of the high yield spread in the United States," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 203-230.
    2. Alfred V Guender & Bernard Tolan, 2013. "The Centre Matters for the Periphery of Europe: The Predictive Ability of a GZ-Type Spread for Economic Activity in Europe," Working Papers in Economics 13/29, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    3. Kiss, Tamás & Nguyen, Hoang & Österholm, Pär, 2022. "The Relation between the High-Yield Bond Spread and the Unemployment Rate in the Euro Area," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    4. Nektarios Aslanidis & Andrea Cipollini, 2007. "Leading indicator properties of the US corporate spreads," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 115, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    5. Alfred Guender & Bernard Tolan, 2017. "The predictive ability of a risk-adjusted yield spread for economic activity in Europe," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 44(1), pages 1-27, February.
    6. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni & Dalibor Stevanović, 2020. "Dynamic Effects of Credit Shocks in a Data-Rich Environment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 272-284, April.
    7. Mizen, Paul & Tsoukas, Serafeim, 2012. "The response of the external finance premium in Asian corporate bond markets to financial characteristics, financial constraints and two financial crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3048-3059.
    8. Saar, Dan & Yagil, Yossi, 2015. "Forecasting growth and stock performance using government and corporate yield curves: Evidence from the European and Asian markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 27-41.
    9. Carlson Mark A & King Thomas & Lewis Kurt, 2011. "Distress in the Financial Sector and Economic Activity," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-31, June.
    10. Mody, Ashoka & Sarno, Lucio & Taylor, Mark P., 2007. "A cross-country financial accelerator: Evidence from North America and Europe," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 149-165, February.
    11. Vít Pošta & Zdeněk Pikhart, 2015. "Financial Risk and Real Variables: Evidence Based on a SVAR Analysis of the Czech Economy," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(5), pages 516-537.
    12. Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Takaoka, Sumiko, 2017. "The term structure of credit spreads and business cycle in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 27-36.
    13. De Graeve, Ferre, 2008. "The external finance premium and the macroeconomy: US post-WWII evidence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 3415-3440, November.
    14. Yutaka Kurihara, 2014. "Does High Yield Spread Dampen Economic Growth?: The Case of US-Japan," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 3(2), pages 01-09, April.
    15. Alicia Garcia Herrero & Alvaro Ortiz, 2004. "The Role Of Global Risk Aversion In Explaining Latin American Sovereign Spreads," International Finance 0408001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Michael Bleaney & Paul Mizen & Veronica Veleanu, 2012. "Bond Spreads as Predictors of Economic Activity in Eight European Economies," Discussion Papers 12/11, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    17. Michael Bleaney & Paul Mizen & Veronica Veleanu, 2016. "Bond Spreads and Economic Activity in Eight European Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(598), pages 2257-2291, December.
    18. Paul Mizen & Serafeim Tsoukas, 2006. "Evidence on the external finance premium from the US and emerging Asian corporate bond markets," Discussion Papers 06/04, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    19. repec:prg:jnlpep:v:preprint:id:513:p:1-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Oliveira, Fernando Nascimento, 2016. "The External Finance Premium in Brazil: Empirical Analyses Using State Space Models," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 36(1), March.
    21. Mody, Ashoka & Taylor, Mark P., 2007. "Regional vulnerability: The case of East Asia," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(8), pages 1292-1310, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    High yield spreads; Leading properties; Financial accelerator;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

    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:ecolet:v:121:y:2013:i:3:p:346-355. 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/ecolet .

    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.