IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/wptemi/td_1527_26.html

Safety switches: the macroeconomic consequences of time-varying asset safety

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Foschi

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

I develop a model-based definition of time-varying sovereign bond safety and apply it empirically by constructing a news-based index, the flight-to-safety index (FLY), which measures global safe-asset demand. The FLY captures flight-to-safety episodes, the savings glut, and natural interest rate declines. Estimated FLY loadings allow the classification of bonds as safe, neutral, or risky. Post-Great-Recession, the global set of safe assets has shrunk, but the safety of US assets has increased. I detect regime switches in FLY loadings: positive switches (becoming safe) align with expansions, higher government spending, lower debt, and credit upgrades; negative switches (becoming risky) are associated with contractions, reduced spending, higher debt, and downgrades.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Foschi, 2026. "Safety switches: the macroeconomic consequences of time-varying asset safety," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1527, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1527_26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2026/2026-1527/en_tema_1527.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rey, Hélène & Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier, 2016. "Real Interest Rates, Imbalances and the Curse of Regional Safe Asset Providers at the Zero Lower Bound," CEPR Discussion Papers 11503, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    3. Rohan Kekre & Moritz Lenel, 2024. "The Flight to Safety and International Risk Sharing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(6), pages 1650-1691, June.
    4. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(2 (Fall)), pages 215-287.
    5. Panageas, Stavros, 2010. "Bailouts, the incentive to manage risk, and financial crises," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 296-311, March.
    6. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2022. "A Requiem for “Blame It on Beijing” interpreting rotating global current account surpluses," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    7. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    8. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Lunyang Huang, 2019. "A Global Safe Asset for and from Emerging Market Economies," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Álvaro Aguirre & Markus Brunnermeier & Diego Saravia (ed.),Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: Transmission Mechanisms and Policy Implications, edition 1, volume 26, chapter 5, pages 111-167, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Veronica Guerrieri & Robert Shimer, 2014. "Dynamic Adverse Selection: A Theory of Illiquidity, Fire Sales, and Flight to Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 1875-1908, July.
    10. Fukuda, Shin-ichi, 2016. "Strong sterling pound and weak European currencies in the crises: Evidence from covered interest parity of secured rates," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 109-122.
    11. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(2 (Fall)), pages 215-287.
    12. Kose, M. Ayhan & Kurlat, Sergio & Ohnsorge, Franziska & Sugawara, Naotaka, 2022. "A cross-country database of fiscal space," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    13. Zhengyang Jiang & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Hanno Lustig, 2018. "Foreign Safe Asset Demand for US Treasurys and the Dollar," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 537-541, May.
    14. Jacob Boudoukh & Jordan Brooks & Matthew Richardson & Zhikai Xu, 2016. "The Complexity of Liquidity: The Extraordinary Case of Sovereign Bonds," NBER Working Papers 22576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    2. Lee, Seung Jung & Liu, Lucy Qian & Stebunovs, Viktors, 2022. "Risk-taking spillovers of U.S. monetary policy in the global market for U.S. dollar corporate loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Seung Jung Lee & Lucy Qian Liu & Viktors Stebunovs, 2017. "Risk Taking and Interest Rates: Evidence from Decades in the Global Syndicated Loan Market," IMF Working Papers 2017/016, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Jung, Alexander, 2023. "US monetary policy spillovers to European banks," Working Paper Series 2876, European Central Bank.
    5. Aysun, Uluc & Jeon, Kiyoung & Kabukcuoglu, Zeynep, 2018. "Is the credit channel alive? Firm-level evidence on the sensitivity of borrowing spreads to monetary policy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 305-319.
    6. Domenico Lombardi & Pierre L. Siklos & Samantha St. Amand, 2019. "Government Bond Yields At The Effective Lower Bound: International Evidence," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(1), pages 102-120, January.
    7. Stelios Bekiros & Amanda Dahlström & Gazi Salah Uddin & Oskar Ege & Ranadeva Jayasekera, 2020. "A tale of two shocks: The dynamics of international real estate markets," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 3-27, January.
    8. Michelle Lowry, 2024. "The questions being asked: Academic research, the media, and regulators," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 59(3), pages 549-560, August.
    9. Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Luc Laeven & Gustavo A. Suarez, 2017. "Bank Leverage and Monetary Policy's Risk-Taking Channel: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(2), pages 613-654, April.
    10. Chang, Yuk Ying & Anderson, Hamish & Shi, Song, 2018. "China and international housing price growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 294-312.
    11. Silvia Miranda-Agrippino & Hélène Rey, 2020. "U.S. Monetary Policy and the Global Financial Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2754-2776.
    12. Kevin Pallara & Luca Rossi & Fabrizio Venditti, 2026. "Macroeconomic shocks and the term premium in the US," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1520, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    13. Timmermann, Allan & Burjack, Rafael & Qu, Ritong, 2019. "Fluctuations in Economic Uncertainty and Transmission of Monetary Policy Shocks: Evidence Using Daily Surveys from Brazil," CEPR Discussion Papers 14097, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    14. Hesse, Henning & Hofmann, Boris & Weber, James Michael, 2018. "The macroeconomic effects of asset purchases revisited," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 115-138.
    15. Wohlfarth, Paul, 2018. "Measuring the impact of monetary policy attention on global asset volatility using search data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 15-18.
    16. De Santis, Roberto A., 2020. "Impact of the Asset Purchase Programme on euro area government bond yields using market news," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 192-209.
    17. Mattia Guerini & Francesco Lamperti & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Tania Treibich, 2022. "Unconventional monetary policies in an agent-based model with mark-to-market standards," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 73-107, April.
    18. de la Horra, Luis P. & Perote, Javier & de la Fuente, Gabriel, 2021. "Monetary policy and corporate investment: A panel-data analysis of transmission mechanisms in contexts of high uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 609-624.
    19. Wang, Ling, 2022. "The dynamics of money supply determination under asset purchase programs: A market-based versus a bank-based financial system," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    20. van Holle, Frederiek, 2017. "Essays in empirical finance and monetary policy," Other publications TiSEM 30d11a4b-7bc9-4c81-ad24-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • F44 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Business Cycles
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:bdi:wptemi:td_1527_26. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.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.