IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbwps/20111286.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corporate bond spreads and real activity in the euro area - Least Angle Regression forecasting and the probability of the recession

Author

Listed:
  • Gross, Marco

Abstract

This paper aims at providing a detailed analysis of the leading indicator properties of corporate bond spreads for real economic activity in the euro area. In- and out-of-sample predictive content of corporate bond spreads are examined along three dimensions: the bonds JEL Classification: E32, E37, E44, G32

Suggested Citation

  • Gross, Marco, 2011. "Corporate bond spreads and real activity in the euro area - Least Angle Regression forecasting and the probability of the recession," Working Paper Series 1286, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20111286
    Note: 3098116
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1286.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    2. Fornari, Fabio & Lemke, Wolfgang, 2010. "Predicting recession probabilities with financial variables over multiple horizons," Working Paper Series 1255, European Central Bank.
    3. Engemann, Kristie M. & Kliesen, Kevin L. & Owyang, Michael T., 2011. "Do Oil Shocks Drive Business Cycles? Some U.S. And International Evidence," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(S3), pages 498-517, November.
    4. Adrian, Tobias & Shin, Hyun Song, 2010. "Liquidity and leverage," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 418-437, July.
    5. Robert J. Gordon, 1998. "Foundations of the Goldilocks Economy: Supply Shocks and the Time-Varying NAIRU," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 297-346.
    6. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2006. "How Stable is the Forecasting Performance of the Yield Curve for Output Growth?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(s1), pages 783-795, December.
    7. De Graeve, Ferre, 2008. "The external finance premium and the macroeconomy: US post-WWII evidence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 3415-3440, November.
    8. Davis, E Philip & Fagan, Gabriel, 1997. "Are Financial Spreads Useful Indicators of Future Inflation and Output Growth in EU Countries?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(6), pages 701-714, Nov.-Dec..
    9. James E. Matheson & Robert L. Winkler, 1976. "Scoring Rules for Continuous Probability Distributions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(10), pages 1087-1096, June.
    10. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1998. "Predicting U.S. Recessions: Financial Variables As Leading Indicators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 45-61, February.
    11. Marcelle Chauvet & Simon Potter, 2005. "Forecasting recessions using the yield curve," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 77-103.
    12. John V. Duca, 1999. "What credit market indicators tell us," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q III, pages 2-13.
    13. Fama, Eugene F., 1990. "Term-structure forecasts of interest rates, inflation and real returns," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 59-76, January.
    14. Fabio Panetta & Paolo Angelini & Ugo Albertazzi & Francesco Columba & Wanda Cornacchia & Antonio Di Cesare & Andrea Pilati & Carmelo Salleo & Giovanni Santini, 2009. "Financial sector pro-cyclicality: lessons from the crisis," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 44, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Guha, Debashis & Hiris, Lorene, 2002. "The aggregate credit spread and the business cycle," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 219-227.
    16. Thomas B. King & Andrew T. Levin & Roberto Perli, 2007. "Financial market perceptions of recession risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-57, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Raphael Espinoza & Fabio Fornari & Marco J. Lombardi, 2012. "The Role of Financial Variables in predicting economic activity," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 15-46, January.
    18. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1990. "The Information in the Longer Maturity Term Structure about Future Inflation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 815-828.
    19. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    20. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1992. "The Federal Funds Rate and the Channels of Monetary Transmission," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 901-921, September.
    21. Thomas Philippon, 2009. "The Bond Market's q," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1011-1056.
    22. Tilmann Gneiting & Fadoua Balabdaoui & Adrian E. Raftery, 2007. "Probabilistic forecasts, calibration and sharpness," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 69(2), pages 243-268, April.
    23. (Kim | Lopez-Salido | Swanson) & Andrew Levin, 2004. "The magnitude and Cyclical Behavior of Financial Market Frictions," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 224, Society for Computational Economics.
    24. Gilchrist, Simon & Yankov, Vladimir & Zakrajsek, Egon, 2009. "Credit market shocks and economic fluctuations: Evidence from corporate bond and stock markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 471-493, May.
    25. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    26. Ben Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1990. "Financial Fragility and Economic Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 87-114.
    27. Schneider Ulrike & Wagner Martin, 2012. "Catching Growth Determinants with the Adaptive Lasso," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 71-85, February.
    28. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    29. Plosser, Charles I. & Geert Rouwenhorst, K., 1994. "International term structures and real economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 133-155, February.
    30. Hahn, Elke & de Bondt, Gabe, 2010. "Predicting recessions and recoveries in real time: The euro area-wide leading indicator (ALI)," Working Paper Series 1246, European Central Bank.
    31. Jane Haltmaier, 2008. "Predicting cycles in economic activity," International Finance Discussion Papers 926, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    32. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2007. "Approximately normal tests for equal predictive accuracy in nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 291-311, May.
    33. James H. Stock & Mark W.Watson, 2003. "Forecasting Output and Inflation: The Role of Asset Prices," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 788-829, September.
    34. de Bondt, Gabe, 2002. "Euro area corporate debt securities market: first empirical evidence," Working Paper Series 164, European Central Bank.
    35. Gelain, Paolo, 2010. "The external finance premium in the euro area A useful indicator for monetary policy?," Working Paper Series 1171, European Central Bank.
    36. Mody, Ashoka & Taylor, Mark P., 2004. "Financial predictors of real activity and the financial accelerator," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 167-172, February.
    37. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Friedman, Benjamin M & Kuttner, Kenneth N, 1992. "Money, Income, Prices, and Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 472-492, June.
    39. Bernanke, Ben S, 1983. "Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in Propagation of the Great Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 257-276, June.
    40. Stock J.H. & Watson M.W., 2002. "Forecasting Using Principal Components From a Large Number of Predictors," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 1167-1179, December.
    41. Sharon Kozicki, 1997. "Predicting real growth and inflation with the yield spread," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 82(Q IV), pages 39-57.
    42. Jonathan H. Wright, 2006. "The yield curve and predicting recessions," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-07, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    43. Mr. Iryna V. Ivaschenko & Mr. Jorge A Chan-Lau, 2001. "Corporate Bond Risk and Real Activity: An Empirical Analysis of Yield Spreads and Their Systematic Components," IMF Working Papers 2001/158, International Monetary Fund.
    44. Gabe de Bondt, 2004. "The balance sheet channel of monetary policy: first empirical evidence for the euro area corporate bond market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(3), pages 219-228.
    45. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    46. Badarinza, Cristian & Gross, Marco, 2009. "Inflation perceptions and expectations in the euro area: the role of news," Working Paper Series 1088, European Central Bank.
    47. Gabe de Bondt, 2009. "Predictive content of the stock market for output revisited," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(13), pages 1289-1294.
    48. Gabe De Bondt, 2005. "Determinants of corporate debt securities in the Euro area," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(6), pages 493-509.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Elena Andreou & Eric Ghysels & Andros Kourtellos, 2013. "Should Macroeconomic Forecasters Use Daily Financial Data and How?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 240-251, April.
    2. Krylova, Elizaveta, 2016. "Leading indicator properties of corporate bond spreads, excess bond premia and lending spreads in the euro area," Working Paper Series 1911, European Central Bank.
    3. Nicoletti, Giulio & Passaro, Raffaele, 2012. "Sometimes it helps: the evolving predictive power of spreads on GDP dynamics," Working Paper Series 1447, European Central Bank.
    4. Seitz, Franz & Baumann, Ursel & Albuquerque, Bruno, 2015. "The information content of money and credit for US activity," Working Paper Series 1803, European Central Bank.
    5. Kiss, Tamás & Nguyen, Hoang & Österholm, Pär, 2022. "The Relation between the High-Yield Bond Spread and the Unemployment Rate in the Euro Area," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    6. Schumacher, Christian, 2014. "MIDAS regressions with time-varying parameters: An application to corporate bond spreads and GDP in the Euro area," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100289, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Deschamps, Bruno & Ioannidis, Christos & Ka, Kook, 2020. "High-frequency credit spread information and macroeconomic forecast revision," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 358-372.
    8. Albuquerque, Bruno & Baumann, Ursel & Seitz, Franz, 2016. "What does money and credit tell us about real activity in the United States?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 328-347.
    9. repec:ecb:ecbwps:20141803 is not listed 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. Gilchrist, Simon & Yankov, Vladimir & Zakrajsek, Egon, 2009. "Credit market shocks and economic fluctuations: Evidence from corporate bond and stock markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 471-493, May.
    3. Michael Bleaney & Paul Mizen & Veronica Veleanu, 2012. "Bond Spreads as Predictors of Economic Activity in Eight European Economies," Discussion Papers 12/11, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    4. Deschamps, Bruno & Ioannidis, Christos & Ka, Kook, 2020. "High-frequency credit spread information and macroeconomic forecast revision," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 358-372.
    5. James H. Stock & Mark W.Watson, 2003. "Forecasting Output and Inflation: The Role of Asset Prices," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 788-829, September.
    6. Cremers, Martijn & Fleckenstein, Matthias & Gandhi, Priyank, 2021. "Treasury yield implied volatility and real activity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 412-435.
    7. Michael Bleaney & Paul Mizen & Veronica Veleanu, 2016. "Bond Spreads and Economic Activity in Eight European Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(598), pages 2257-2291, December.
    8. Vasilios Plakandaras & Juncal Cunado & Rangan Gupta & Mark E. Wohar, 2016. "Do Leading Indicators Forecast U.S. Recessions? A Nonlinear Re-Evaluation Using Historical Data," Working Papers 201685, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    9. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika & Wei, Min, 2006. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 359-403.
    10. Elena Andreou & Eric Ghysels & Andros Kourtellos, 2013. "Should Macroeconomic Forecasters Use Daily Financial Data and How?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 240-251, April.
    11. David C. Wheelock & Mark E. Wohar, 2009. "Can the term spread predict output growth and recessions? a survey of the literature," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 91(Sep), pages 419-440.
    12. Bassett, William F. & Chosak, Mary Beth & Driscoll, John C. & Zakrajšek, Egon, 2014. "Changes in bank lending standards and the macroeconomy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 23-40.
    13. Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Takaoka, Sumiko, 2017. "The term structure of credit spreads and business cycle in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 27-36.
    14. Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Takaoka, Sumiko, 2022. "The credit spread curve distribution and economic fluctuations in Japan," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    15. Alfred V Guender & Bernard Tolan, 2013. "The Centre Matters for the Periphery of Europe: The Predictive Ability of a GZ-Type Spread for Economic Activity in Europe," Working Papers in Economics 13/29, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    16. Aguiar-Conraria, Luís & Martins, Manuel M.F. & Soares, Maria Joana, 2012. "The yield curve and the macro-economy across time and frequencies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 1950-1970.
    17. Gebka, Bartosz & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "The predictive power of the yield spread for future economic expansions: Evidence from a new approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 181-195.
    18. Reyna Cerecero Mario & Salazar Cavazos Diana & Salgado Banda Héctor, 2008. "The Yield Curve and its Relation with Economic Activity: The Mexican Case," Working Papers 2008-15, Banco de México.
    19. Nathan Bedock & Dalibor Stevanović, 2017. "An empirical study of credit shock transmission in a small open economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 541-570, May.
    20. Willi Semmler, 2011. "Asset Prices, Booms and Recessions," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-642-20680-1, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    automatic model building; corporate bond spreads; least angle regression; point and density forecasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ecb:ecbwps:20111286. 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: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.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.