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Good Policies or Good Fortune: What Drives the Compression in Emerging Market Spreads?

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  • Philipp Maier
  • Garima Vasishtha

Abstract

Since 2002, spreads on emerging market sovereign debt have fallen to historical lows. Given the close links between sovereign spreads, capital flows to emerging markets, and economic growth, understanding the factors driving these spreads is very important. We address this issue in two stages. First, we use factor analysis to study the extent to which emerging market bond spreads are driven by global factors, as opposed to country-specific macroeconomic fundamentals. Using data on different U.S. asset classes, we identify a common factor, linked to global financial conditions. Second, we use this common factor in a panel estimation framework to analyze the degree to which the fall in spreads is driven by better macroeconomic policies. Our results show that the common factor is not responsible for the reduction in spreads. Instead, emerging markets have benefited considerably from better macroeconomic policies, including lower inflation and lower debt. Therefore, a reversal of the benign global conditions need not necessarily have a substantial negative impact on financing conditions for emerging markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Maier & Garima Vasishtha, 2008. "Good Policies or Good Fortune: What Drives the Compression in Emerging Market Spreads?," Staff Working Papers 08-25, Bank of Canada.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:08-25
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    Cited by:

    1. Velloso, Helvia & Bustillo, Inés, 2013. "Debt financing rollercoaster: Latin American and Caribbean access to international bond markets since the debt crisis, 1982-2012," Libros de la CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 2635 edited by Eclac, May.
    2. Mr. Luca A Ricci & Mr. Marcos d Chamon & Ms. Yuanyan S Zhang, 2011. "Country Insurance Using Financial Instruments," IMF Working Papers 2011/169, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Zinna, Gabriele, 2014. "Identifying risks in emerging market sovereign and corporate bond spreads," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 1-22.
    4. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian T. & Siegel, Stephan, 2016. "Political risk and international valuation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-23.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Development economics; Financial stability; International topics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

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