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Sovereign spreads in the Euro area: Cross border transmission and macroeconomic implications

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  • Bahaj, Saleem

Abstract

Large movements in sovereign spreads were at the heart of the euro crisis. This paper builds a new high-frequency narrative dataset of country specific events in the crisis period to identify shocks to sovereign spreads that are orthogonal to the economy. It finds that an increase in sovereign spreads has a contractionary macroeconomic impact with transmission running through a deterioration in private financial conditions. Moreover, the market reactions to foreign events explains a meaningful share of the variation in a sovereign’s cost of borrowing during the crisis.

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  • Bahaj, Saleem, 2020. "Sovereign spreads in the Euro area: Cross border transmission and macroeconomic implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 116-135.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:110:y:2020:i:c:p:116-135
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2019.01.006
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    Cited by:

    1. Harold L. Cole & Daniel Neuhann & Guillermo Ordoñez, 2022. "Information Spillovers and Sovereign Debt: Theory Meets the Eurozone Crisis," NBER Working Papers 30216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mitchener, Kris & Trebesch, Christoph, 2021. "Sovereign Debt in the 21st Century: Looking Backward, Looking Forward," CEPR Discussion Papers 15935, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Clancy, Daragh & Gabriele, Carmine & Žigraiová, Diana, 2022. "Sovereign bond market spillovers from crisis-time developments in Greece," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Schuster, Florian, 2023. "Spreads auf Staatsanleihezinsen, der EZB-Sicherheitenrahmen und Peripherieprämien in der Eurozone," Papers 277910, Dezernat Zukunft - Institute for Macrofinance, Berlin.
    5. Debrun, Xavier & Masuch, Klaus & Ferrero, Guiseppe & Vansteenkiste, Isabel & Ferdinandusse, Marien & von Thadden, Leopold & Hauptmeier, Sebastian & Alloza, Mario & Derouen, Chloé & Bańkowski, Krzyszto, 2021. "Monetary-fiscal policy interactions in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 273, European Central Bank.
    6. Philippe Andrade & Filippo Ferroni & Leonardo Melosi, 2023. "Identification Using Higher-Order Moments Restrictions," Working Paper Series WP 2023-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    7. Andrea Gazzani & Alejandro Vicondoa, 2020. "Bridge Proxy-SVAR: estimating the macroeconomic effects of shocks identified at high-frequency," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1274, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Kerssenfischer, Mark & Schmeling, Maik, 2022. "What moves markets?," Discussion Papers 16/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    9. Giacomini, Raffaella & Kitagawa, Toru & Read, Matthew, 2022. "Robust Bayesian inference in proxy SVARs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 228(1), pages 107-126.
    10. Kris James Mitchener & Christoph Trebesch, 2021. "Sovereign Debt in the 21st Century," CESifo Working Paper Series 8959, CESifo.
    11. Iván Kataryniuk & Víctor Mora-Bajén & Javier J. Pérez, 2021. "EMU deepening and sovereign debt spreads: using political space to achieve policy space," Working Papers 2103, Banco de España.
    12. Mirela Miescu, 2019. "Uncertainty shocks in emerging economies," Working Papers 277077821, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    13. Hacioglu Hoke, Sinem, 2019. "Macroeconomic effects of political risk shocks," Bank of England working papers 841, Bank of England.
    14. Palmén, Olli, 2020. "Sovereign default risk and credit supply: Evidence from the euro area," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    15. Gian Paulo Soave, 2020. "International Drivers of Policy Uncertainty in Emerging Economies," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 716-726.
    16. Niels Gilbert, 2019. "Euro area sovereign risk spillovers before and after the ECB's OMT announcement," DNB Working Papers 636, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    17. Gibson, Heather D. & Hall, Stephen G. & Petroulas, Pavlos & Tavlas, George S., 2022. "An investigation into feedback and spatial relationships between banks’ share prices and sovereign bond spreads during the euro crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    18. Bruns, Martin, 2021. "Proxy Vector Autoregressions in a Data-rich Environment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    19. Schuster, Florian, 2023. "Sovereign spreads, central bank collateral frameworks, and periphery premia in the Eurozone," Papers 277915, Dezernat Zukunft - Institute for Macrofinance, Berlin.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sovereign risk passthrough; High frequency identification; Contagion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission

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