IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2012-77.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Credit spreads as predictors of real-time economic activity: a Bayesian Model-Averaging approach

Author

Abstract

Employing a large number of financial indicators, we use Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to forecast real-time measures of economic activity. The indicators include credit spreads based on portfolios--constructed directly from the secondary market prices of outstanding bonds--sorted by maturity and credit risk. Relative to an autoregressive benchmark, BMA yields consistent improvements in the prediction of the cyclically-sensitive measures of economic activity at horizons from the current quarter out to four quarters hence. The gains in forecast accuracy are statistically significant and economically important and owe almost exclusively to the inclusion of credit spreads in the set of predictors.

Suggested Citation

  • Jon Faust & Simon Gilchrist & Jonathan H. Wright & Egon Zakrajšek, 2012. "Credit spreads as predictors of real-time economic activity: a Bayesian Model-Averaging approach," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-77, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2012-77
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2012/201277/201277abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2012/201277/201277pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    2. Ben S. Bernanke, 1990. "On the predictive power of interest rates and interest rate spreads," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 51-68.
    3. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Tyler Shumway, 2008. "Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1339-1369, May.
    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. Rehse, Dominik & Riordan, Ryan & Rottke, Nico & Zietz, Joachim, 2019. "The effects of uncertainty on market liquidity: Evidence from Hurricane Sandy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 318-332.
    2. Michael Bleaney & Veronica Veleanu, 2017. "Currency risk in corporate bond spreads in the eurozone," Discussion Papers 2017/07, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    3. Lindo, Jason M. & Padilla-Romo, María, 2018. "Kingpin approaches to fighting crime and community violence: Evidence from Mexico's drug war," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 253-268.
    4. Seiffert, Sebastian, 2015. "The Role of Economic Geography in Subnational African Development," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113186, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Eric Hillebrand & Huiyu Huang & Tae-Hwy Lee & Canlin Li, 2018. "Using the Entire Yield Curve in Forecasting Output and Inflation," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-27, August.
    6. Claudia Buch & Catherine Koch & Michael Koetter, 2016. "Crises and rescues: liquidity transmission through international banks," BIS Working Papers 576, Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Johannes A. Skjeltorp & Bernt Arne Ødegaard, 2009. "The information content of market liquidity: An empirical analysis of liquidity at the Oslo Stock Exchange?," Working Paper 2009/26, Norges Bank.
    8. Chen, Peimin & Wu, Chunchi, 2014. "Default prediction with dynamic sectoral and macroeconomic frailties," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 211-226.
    9. Giordani, Paolo & Jacobson, Tor & Schedvin, Erik von & Villani, Mattias, 2014. "Taking the Twists into Account: Predicting Firm Bankruptcy Risk with Splines of Financial Ratios," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 1071-1099, August.
    10. Yue Zhao & Difang Wan, 2018. "Institutional high frequency trading and price discovery: Evidence from an emerging commodity futures market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 243-270, February.
    11. Leon Zolotoy & Don O’Sullivan & Keke Song, 2021. "The Role of Ethical Standards in the Relationship Between Religious Social Norms and M&A Announcement Returns," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 721-742, May.
    12. Sellin, Peter, 1998. "Monetary Policy and the Stock Market: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Working Paper Series 72, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    13. Rute M. Caeiro & Pedro C. Vicente, 2020. "Knowledge of vitamin A deficiency and crop adoption: Evidence from a field experiment in Mozambique," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(2), pages 175-190, March.
    14. Hu, Xiaolu & Shi, Jing & Wang, Lafang & Yu, Jing, 2020. "Foreign ownership in Chinese credit ratings industry: Information revelation or certification?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    15. Anil Kumar, 2018. "Do Restrictions on Home Equity Extraction Contribute to Lower Mortgage Defaults? Evidence from a Policy Discontinuity at the Texas Border," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 268-297, February.
    16. Angrisani Marco & Guarino Antonio & Huck Steffen & Larson Nathan C, 2011. "No-Trade in the Laboratory," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-58, April.
    17. Alfredo Burlando & Anca D. Cristea & Logan M. Lee, 2015. "The Trade Consequences of Maritime Insecurity: Evidence from Somali Piracy," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 525-557, August.
    18. Andrea Orame, 2020. "The role of bank supply in the Italian credit market: evidence from a new regional survey," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1279, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Raghuram Rajan & Rodney Ramcharan, 2015. "The Anatomy of a Credit Crisis: The Boom and Bust in Farm Land Prices in the United States in the 1920s," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1439-1477, April.
    20. Franck Sédillot, 2001. "La pente des taux contient-elle de l’information sur l’activité économique future ?," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 147(1), pages 141-157.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

    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:fedgfe:2012-77. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    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: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.