IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/14314.html

Corporate Yields and Sovereign Yields

In: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2019

Author

Listed:
  • Julia Bevilaqua
  • Galina B. Hale
  • Eric Tallman

Abstract

We document that positive association between corporate and sovereign cost of funds borrowed on global capital markets weakens during periods of unusually high sovereign yields, when some corporate borrowers are able to issue debt that is priced at lower rates than sovereign debt. This state-dependent sensitivity of corporate yields to sovereign yields has not been previously documented in the literature. We demonstrate that this stylized fact is observed across countries and industries as well as for a given borrower over time. It is not explained by a different composition of borrowers issuing debt during periods of high sovereign yields, by the relationship between corporate and sovereign credit ratings, and only partially explained by financial crises and IMF programs. We propose a simple information model that rationalizes our empirical observations: when sovereign yields are high, corporate yields are less sensitive to sovereign yields.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Julia Bevilaqua & Galina B. Hale & Eric Tallman, 2019. "Corporate Yields and Sovereign Yields," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2019, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:14314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicolas End, 2021. "The Prince and Me A model of Fiscal Credibility," Working Papers halshs-03222115, HAL.
    2. Gopinath, Gita & Meyer, Josefin & Reinhart, Carmen M. & Trebesch, Christoph, 2025. "Sovereign vs. corporate debt and default: More similar than you think," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    3. Ruggero Jappelli & Loriana Pelizzon & Alberto Plazzi, 2021. "The Core, the Periphery, and the Disaster: Corporate-Sovereign Nexus in COVID-19 Times," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 21-30, Swiss Finance Institute.
    4. Florent Kanga GBONGUE & Lambert N’Galadjo BAMBA, 2023. "Le modèle hybride de la structure par terme des primes souveraines de crédit et de liquidité dans la zone UEMOA," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 57, pages 101-145.
    5. Valenzuela, Patricio, 2025. "Corporate credit ratings, banking fragility, and sovereign credit risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    6. Egemen Eren & Semyon Malamud & Haonan Zhou, 2023. "Signaling with debt currency choice," BIS Working Papers 1067, Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Umar, Zaghum & Iqbal, Najaf & Teplova, Tamara & Tan, Duojiao, 2024. "Dynamic impact of the US yield curve on green bonds: Navigating through recent crises," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    8. B M, Lithin & chakraborty, Suman & iyer, Vishwanathan & M N, Nikhil & ledwani, Sanket, 2022. "Modeling asymmetric sovereign bond yield volatility with univariate GARCH models: Evidence from India," MPRA Paper 117067, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Jan 2023.
    9. Roman Garcia & Dimitri Lorenzani & Daniel Monteiro & Francesco Perticari & Bořek Vašíček & Lukas Vogel, 2021. "Financial Spillover and Contagion Risks in the Euro Area in 2007-2019," European Economy - Discussion Papers 137, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    10. Wang, Yabin & Wu, Sharon Xiaohui, 2023. "Local guarantees and SOE bond pricing in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Enrico Gabriele, 2023. "How did Environmental Awareness Work? Cross-Country Evidence About Sustainability-Oriented Behaviors," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(3), pages 1365-1411, November.
    12. Ambrocio, Gene & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2021. "Quid pro quo? Political ties and sovereign borrowing," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    13. Joshua Aizenman & Yin-Wong Cheung & Xingwang Qian, 2025. "International Reserve Management and Firm Investment in Emerging Market Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 503-540, April.
    14. Julia Bevilaqua & Galina Hale & Eric Tallman, 2020. "Corporate Yields: Effect of Credit Ratings and Sovereign Yields," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 499-503, May.
    15. Silvia Marchesi & Tania Masi & Pietro Bomprezzi, 2021. "Is to Forgive to Forget? Sovereign Risk in the Aftermath of a Default," Development Working Papers 475, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    16. Bevilaqua, Julia & Hale, Galina B. & Tallman, Eric, 2020. "Corporate yields and sovereign yields," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Jun Hee Kwak, 2025. "A Causal Linkage: Corporate Debt and Sovereign Spreads," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 68(4), pages 1567-1611, April.
    18. Di Tommaso, Caterina & Perdichizzi, Salvatore & Vigne, Samuel & Zaghini, Andrea, 2025. "Is the Government always greener?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    19. Dekle, Robert & Tsang, Andrew, 2023. "Monetary policy shocks and resource misallocations in the Periphery: Evidence from Chinese provincial bond yields," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    20. Ambrocio, Gene & Gu, Xian & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2022. "Political ties and raising capital in global markets: Evidence from Yankee bonds," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    21. Silvia Marchesi & Tania Masi, 2020. "The price of haircuts: private and official default," Development Working Papers 460, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 06 Feb 2020.
    22. Li, Delong & Magud, Nicolas E. & Werner, Alejandro, 2023. "The long-run impact of sovereign yields on corporate yields in emerging markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • F65 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Finance
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:nbr:nberch:14314. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.