IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedfwp/2019-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Safety Premium of Safe Assets

Author

Listed:
  • Jens H. E. Christensen
  • Nikola Mirkov

Abstract

Safe assets usually trade at a premium due to their high credit quality and deep liquidity. To understand the role of credit quality for such premia, we focus on Swiss Confederation bonds, which are extremely safe but not particularly liquid. We therefore refer to their premia as safety premia and quantify them using an arbitrage-free term structure model that accounts for time-varying premia in individual bond prices. The estimation results show that Swiss safety premia are large and exhibit long-lasting trends. Furthermore, our regression analysis suggests that they shifted upwards persistently following the launch of the euro but have been depressed in recent years by the asset purchases of the European Central Bank.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens H. E. Christensen & Nikola Mirkov, 2021. "The Safety Premium of Safe Assets," Working Paper Series 2019-28, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2019-28
    DOI: 10.24148/wp2019-28
    Note: The first version of this Working Paper was published on November 25, 2019.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/wp2019-28.pdf
    File Function: Full text - article PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.24148/wp2019-28?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233-267.
    2. Collin-Dufresne, Pierre & Goldstein, Robert S. & Jones, Christopher S., 2009. "Can interest rate volatility be extracted from the cross section of bond yields?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 47-66, October.
    3. Jacobs, Kris & Karoui, Lotfi, 2009. "Conditional volatility in affine term-structure models: Evidence from Treasury and swap markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 288-318, March.
    4. Grace Xing Hu & Jun Pan & Jiang Wang, 2013. "Noise as Information for Illiquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2341-2382, December.
    5. Andreasen, Martin M. & Christensen, Jens H.E. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2019. "Term Structure Analysis with Big Data: One-Step Estimation Using Bond Prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 26-46.
    6. Stefan Nagel, 2016. "The Liquidity Premium of Near-Money Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1927-1971.
    7. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold & Paul Labys, 2003. "Modeling and Forecasting Realized Volatility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(2), pages 579-625, March.
    8. Jens H E Christensen & Signe Krogstrup, 2019. "Transmission of Quantitative Easing: The Role of Central Bank Reserves," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 249-272.
    9. Torben G. Andersen & Luca Benzoni, 2010. "Do Bonds Span Volatility Risk in the U.S. Treasury Market? A Specification Test for Affine Term Structure Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(2), pages 603-653, April.
    10. Houweling, Patrick & Mentink, Albert & Vorst, Ton, 2005. "Comparing possible proxies of corporate bond liquidity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1331-1358, June.
    11. Nelson, Charles R & Siegel, Andrew F, 1987. "Parsimonious Modeling of Yield Curves," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(4), pages 473-489, October.
    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. Timothy Mark Grant & Andrei-Dragoş Popescu & Radu-Gabriel Stăuceanu & Dan-Valeriu Voinea, 2020. "Acacia Protocol – A Proposal Of Structured Products For And Within The Decentralized Finance Ecosystem," Social Sciences and Education Research Review, Department of Communication, Journalism and Education Sciences, University of Craiova, vol. 7(1), pages 362-387, July.
    2. Martin M Andreasen & Jens H E Christensen & Simon Riddell, 2021. "The TIPS Liquidity Premium [Decomposing real and nominal yield curves]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 25(6), pages 1639-1675.
    3. Jens H. E. Christensen & Jose A. Lopez & Paul Mussche, 2021. "International Evidence on Extending Sovereign Debt Maturities," Working Paper Series 2021-19, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

    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. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Fischer, Eric & Shultz, Patrick J., 2021. "Bond flows and liquidity: Do foreigners matter?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    2. Christensen, Bent Jesper & Kjær, Mads Markvart & Veliyev, Bezirgen, 2023. "The incremental information in the yield curve about future interest rate risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    3. Remy Beauregard & Jens H. E. Christensen & Eric Fischer & Simon Zhu, 2021. "Inflation Expectations and Risk Premia in Emerging Bond Markets: Evidence from Mexico," Working Paper Series 2021-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    4. Jens H. E. Christensen & Jose A. Lopez & Paul L. Mussche, 2022. "Extrapolating Long-Maturity Bond Yields for Financial Risk Measurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8286-8300, November.
    5. Jens H. E. Christensen & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2016. "Modeling Yields at the Zero Lower Bound: Are Shadow Rates the Solution?," Advances in Econometrics, in: Dynamic Factor Models, volume 35, pages 75-125, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. Jens H. E. Christensen & Jose A. Lopez & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2014. "Can Spanned Term Structure Factors Drive Stochastic Yield Volatility?," Working Paper Series 2014-3, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    7. Laurini, Márcio P. & Caldeira, João F., 2016. "A macro-finance term structure model with multivariate stochastic volatility," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 68-90.
    8. Takamizawa, Hideyuki & 高見澤, 秀幸, 2015. "Impact of No-arbitrage on Interest Rate Dynamics," Working Paper Series G-1-5, Hitotsubashi University Center for Financial Research.
    9. Martin M Andreasen & Jens H E Christensen & Simon Riddell, 2021. "The TIPS Liquidity Premium [Decomposing real and nominal yield curves]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 25(6), pages 1639-1675.
    10. Corey Garriott & Sophie Lefebvre & Guillaume Nolin & Francisco Rivadeneyra & Adrian Walton, 2020. "Alternative futures for Government of Canada debt management," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(4), pages 659-685, January.
    11. Nguyen, Minh, 2020. "Collateral haircuts and bond yields in the European government bond markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Iryna Kaminska & Gabriele Zinna, 2020. "Official Demand for U.S. Debt: Implications for U.S. Real Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(2-3), pages 323-364, March.
    13. Hideyuki Takamizawa, 2015. "Predicting Interest Rate Volatility Using Information on the Yield Curve," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 15(3), pages 347-386, September.
    14. Bruno Feunou & Jean-Sébastien Fontaine & Anh Le & Christian Lundblad, 2022. "Tractable Term Structure Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8411-8429, November.
    15. Campbell, John Y. & Giglio, Stefano & Polk, Christopher & Turley, Robert, 2018. "An intertemporal CAPM with stochastic volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(2), pages 207-233.
    16. Lewis, Kurt F. & Longstaff, Francis A. & Petrasek, Lubomir, 2021. "Asset mispricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 981-1006.
    17. Recchioni, Maria Cristina & Tedeschi, Gabriele, 2017. "From bond yield to macroeconomic instability: A parsimonious affine model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(3), pages 1116-1135.
    18. van Binsbergen, Jules H. & Diamond, William F. & Grotteria, Marco, 2022. "Risk-free interest rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 1-29.
    19. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Spiegel, Mark M., 2022. "Monetary reforms and inflation expectations in Japan: Evidence from inflation-indexed bonds," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 410-431.
    20. Thomas M. Eisenbach & Gregory Phelan, 2022. "Fragility of Safe Asset Markets," Staff Reports 1026, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    affine arbitrage-free term structure model; bond-specific risk premia; euro launch; negative interest rates;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:fip:fedfwp:2019-28. 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: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.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.