IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v164y2025ics0304405x24002125.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The SOFR discount

Author

Listed:
  • Klingler, Sven
  • Syrstad, Olav

Abstract

The transition from London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) to Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) affects the reference rate of floating-rate debt worth trillions of dollars. We provide the first evidence highlighting a benefit of the benchmark transition for debt markets. Focusing on the market for dollar-denominated floating rate notes (FRNs), we compare the yield spreads of FRNs linked to LIBOR and SOFR, issued by the same entity during the same month. After adjusting for the maturity-matched spreads from derivatives markets, we find significantly lower spreads for SOFR-linked FRNs. We link this SOFR discount to the enhanced price stability of SOFR-linked FRNs.

Suggested Citation

  • Klingler, Sven & Syrstad, Olav, 2025. "The SOFR discount," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:164:y:2025:i:c:s0304405x24002125
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103989
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X24002125
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103989?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. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233-267.
    2. Andreas Schrimpf & Vladyslav Sushko, 2019. "Beyond LIBOR: a primer on the new benchmark rates," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    3. Kirti, Divya, 2022. "What are reference rates for?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    4. Harry Cooperman & Darrell Duffie & Stephan Luck & Zachry Wang & Yilin (David) Yang, 2025. "Bank Funding Risk, Reference Rates, and Credit Supply," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 80(1), pages 5-56, February.
    5. Paolo Colla & Filippo Ippolito & Kai Li, 2013. "Debt Specialization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(5), pages 2117-2141, October.
    6. Kjell G. Nyborg & Jiri Woschitz, 2024. "Robust difference-in-differences analysis when there is a term structure," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 24-03, Swiss Finance Institute.
    7. Jens H. E. Christensen & Nikola Mirkov, 2021. "Exploring the Safety Premium of Safe Assets," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2021(13), pages 01-05, May.
    8. Bruce Tuckman, 2023. "Short-Term Rate Benchmarks: The Post-LIBOR Regime," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 473-491, November.
    9. Stefan Nagel, 2016. "The Liquidity Premium of Near-Money Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1927-1971.
    10. Nyborg, Kjell G. & Woschitz, Jiri, 2025. "Robust difference-in-differences analysis when there is a term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    11. Liao, Gordon Y., 2020. "Credit migration and covered interest rate parity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(2), pages 504-525.
    12. Zhiguo He & Zhaogang Song, 2022. "Agency MBS as Safe Assets," NBER Working Papers 29899, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    14. Jens H. E. Christensen & Nikola Mirkov, 2021. "The safety premium of safe assets," Working Papers 2021-02, Swiss National Bank.
    15. Dick-Nielsen, Jens & Nielsen, Mads Stenbo & von Rüden, Stine Louise, 2021. "The value of bond underwriter relationships," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Matthias Fleckenstein & Francis A. Longstaff, 2023. "Do Municipal Bond Investors Pay a Convenience Premium to Avoid Taxes?," NBER Working Papers 31389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Duffie, Darrell, 2018. "Compression Auctions With an Application to LIBOR-SOFR Swap Conversion," Research Papers 3727, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    18. Hartley, Jonathan S. & Jermann, Urban J., 2024. "The pricing of U.S. Treasury floating rate notes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    19. Fleckenstein, Matthias & Longstaff, Francis A., 2020. "The US Treasury floating rate note puzzle: Is there a premium for mark-to-market stability?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(3), pages 637-658.
    20. Francis A. Longstaff, 2004. "The Flight-to-Liquidity Premium in U.S. Treasury Bond Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(3), pages 511-526, July.
    21. Lei Li & Yi Li & Marco Macchiavelli & Xing (Alex) Zhou, 2021. "Liquidity Restrictions, Runs, and Central Bank Interventions: Evidence from Money Market Funds [Dealer financial conditions and lender-of-last-resort facilities]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5402-5437.
    22. Filipović, Damir & Trolle, Anders B., 2013. "The term structure of interbank risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 707-733.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Lewis, Kurt F. & Longstaff, Francis A. & Petrasek, Lubomir, 2021. "Asset mispricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 981-1006.
    2. Thomas M. Eisenbach & Gregory Phelan, 2022. "Fragility of Safe Asset Markets," Staff Reports 1026, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    3. Patrick Augustin & Mikhail Chernov & Lukas Schmid & Dongho Song, 2024. "The Term Structure of Covered Interest Rate Parity Violations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 2077-2114, June.
    4. Benedikt Ballensiefen & Angelo Ranaldo, 2023. "Safe Asset Carry Trade," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 223-265.
    5. Heidorn, Thomas & Liem, Erik & Requardt, Stefan & Wahnschaap, Tim, 2025. "US($) interest rate and cross currency swaps after the LIBOR funeral: A corporate treasury primer," Frankfurt School - Working Paper Series 236, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
    6. Augustin, P. & Chernov, M. & Schmid, L. & Song, D., 2021. "Benchmark interest rates when the government is risky," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 74-100.
    7. Ahn, Yongkil, 2024. "Flight to safety, intermediation frictions, and US Treasury floating rate note prices," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    8. Chernov, Mikhail & Augustin, Patrick & Schmid, Lukas & Song, Dongho, 2020. "The term structure of CIP violations," CEPR Discussion Papers 14774, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Du, Wenxin & Hébert, Benjamin & Li, Wenhao, 2023. "Intermediary balance sheets and the treasury yield curve," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    10. He, Zhiguo & Nagel, Stefan & Song, Zhaogang, 2022. "Treasury inconvenience yields during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 57-79.
    11. Maxime Phillot & Samuel Reynard, 2021. "Monetary policy financial transmission and treasury liquidity premia," Working Papers 2021-14, Swiss National Bank.
    12. William Diamond & Peter Van Tassel, 2022. "Risk-Free Rates and Convenience Yields Around the World," Staff Reports 1032, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    13. Klingler, Sven & Sundaresan, Suresh, 2023. "Diminishing treasury convenience premiums: Effects of dealers’ excess demand and balance sheet constraints," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 55-69.
    14. Thomas M. Eisenbach & Gregory Phelan, 2023. "Fragility of Safe Assets," Working Papers 23-02, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    15. Wenxin Du & Joanne Im & Jesse Schreger, 2017. "The U.S. Treasury Premium," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2017, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Christian Bredemeier & Falko Juessen & Andreas Schabert, 2017. "Fiscal Multipliers and Monetary Policy: Reconciling Theory and Evidence," Working Paper Series in Economics 95, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    17. Simas Kucinskas, 2015. "Aggregate Risk and Efficiency of Mutual Funds," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-113/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    18. Fleckenstein, Matthias & Longstaff, Francis A., 2020. "The US Treasury floating rate note puzzle: Is there a premium for mark-to-market stability?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(3), pages 637-658.
    19. Seungduck Lee, 2025. "Asset Liquidity and Monetary Policy," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 26(1), pages 443-463, May.
    20. Tetiana Davydiuk, 2017. "Dynamic Bank Capital Requirements," 2017 Meeting Papers 1328, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Benchmark rates; floating rates; financial regulation; LIBOR; SOFR;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G29 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Other

    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:jfinec:v:164:y:2025:i:c:s0304405x24002125. 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/inca/505576 .

    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.