IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/revfin/v23y2019i3p557-597..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mind the Gap: Disentangling Credit and Liquidity in Risk Spreads

Author

Listed:
  • Krista Schwarz

Abstract

Euro-area sovereign bond and interbank interest rate spreads spiked in the 2007–2009 Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent European Debt Crisis, substantially elevating financing costs. I use a model-free measure of market liquidity to precisely identify the relative contribution of credit versus liquidity to spreads in these episodes. In the Financial Crisis, liquidity is paramount, accounting for 36% of trough-to-peak widening, after controlling for credit. However, default risk becomes relatively more important to sovereign spreads in the Debt Crisis. Aggregate bond liquidity explains a substantial portion of interbank spreads throughout the sample.

Suggested Citation

  • Krista Schwarz, 2019. "Mind the Gap: Disentangling Credit and Liquidity in Risk Spreads," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(3), pages 557-597.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:revfin:v:23:y:2019:i:3:p:557-597.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rof/rfy034
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baba, Naohiko & Packer, Frank, 2009. "From turmoil to crisis: Dislocations in the FX swap market before and after the failure of Lehman Brothers," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1350-1374, December.
    2. Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Refet S Güürkaynak & Eric T Swanson, 2011. "Convergence and Anchoring of Yield Curves in the Euro Area," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 350-364, February.
    3. Acharya, Viral V. & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2005. "Asset pricing with liquidity risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 375-410, August.
    4. Heider, Florian & Hoerova, Marie & Holthausen, Cornelia, 2015. "Liquidity hoarding and interbank market rates: The role of counterparty risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 336-354.
    5. Favero, Carlo & Pagano, Marco & von Thadden, Ernst-Ludwig, 2010. "How Does Liquidity Affect Government Bond Yields?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 107-134, February.
    6. Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2009. "Deciphering the Liquidity and Credit Crunch 2007-2008," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 77-100, Winter.
    7. James Dow, 2004. "Is Liquidity Self-Fulfilling?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 895-908, October.
    8. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2009. "Market Liquidity and Funding Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2201-2238, June.
    9. De Santis, Roberto A., 2015. "A measure of redenomination risk," Working Paper Series 1785, European Central Bank.
    10. Ammer, John & Cai, Fang, 2011. "Sovereign CDS and bond pricing dynamics in emerging markets: Does the cheapest-to-deliver option matter?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 369-387, July.
    11. François-Louis Michaud & Christian Upper, 2008. "What drives interbank rates? Evidence from the Libor panel," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    12. Gorton, Gary & Metrick, Andrew, 2012. "Securitized banking and the run on repo," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 425-451.
    13. Jack Bao & Jun Pan & Jiang Wang, 2011. "The Illiquidity of Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 911-946, June.
    14. Alessandro Beber & Michael W. Brandt & Kenneth A. Kavajecz, 2009. "Flight-to-Quality or Flight-to-Liquidity? Evidence from the Euro-Area Bond Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 925-957, March.
    15. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    16. John C. Williams & John B. Taylor, 2009. "A Black Swan in the Money Market," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 58-83, January.
    17. Acharya, Viral V. & Skeie, David, 2011. "A model of liquidity hoarding and term premia in inter-bank markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(5), pages 436-447.
    18. Patrick Bolton & Tano Santos & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2011. "Outside and Inside Liquidity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 259-321.
    19. Francis A. Longstaff & Jun Pan & Lasse H. Pedersen & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2011. "How Sovereign Is Sovereign Credit Risk?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 75-103, April.
    20. Francis A. Longstaff, 2009. "Portfolio Claustrophobia: Asset Pricing in Markets with Illiquid Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1119-1144, September.
    21. Dion Bongaerts & Frank de Jong & Joost Driessen, 2017. "An Asset Pricing Approach to Liquidity Effects in Corporate Bond Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(4), pages 1229-1269.
    22. Jun Pan & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2008. "Default and Recovery Implicit in the Term Structure of Sovereign CDS Spreads," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2345-2384, October.
    23. Gara Afonso & Anna Kovner & Antoinette Schoar, 2011. "Stressed, Not Frozen: The Federal Funds Market in the Financial Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1109-1139, August.
    24. Francis A. Longstaff, 2004. "The Flight-to-Liquidity Premium in U.S. Treasury Bond Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(3), pages 511-526, July.
    25. Filipović, Damir & Trolle, Anders B., 2013. "The term structure of interbank risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 707-733.
    26. Michael J. Fleming, 1997. "The round-the-clock market for U.S. Treasury securities," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 3(Jul), pages 9-32.
    27. Long Chen & David A. Lesmond & Jason Wei, 2007. "Corporate Yield Spreads and Bond Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 119-149, February.
    28. Tarun Chordia, 2005. "An Empirical Analysis of Stock and Bond Market Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 85-129.
    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. Dubecq, Simon & Monfort, Alain & Renne, Jean-Paul & Roussellet, Guillaume, 2016. "Credit and liquidity in interbank rates: A quadratic approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 29-46.
    2. Karolina Puławska, 2022. "Effects of the bank levy introduction on the interbank market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 844-864, January.
    3. Azusa Takeyama & Naoshi Tsuchida, 2015. "The Interaction between Funding Liquidity and Market Liquidity: Evidence from Subprime and European Crises," IMES Discussion Paper Series 15-E-14, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    4. Bampinas, Georgios & Panagiotidis, Theodore & Politsidis, Panagiotis N., 2023. "Sovereign bond and CDS market contagion: A story from the Eurozone crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    5. Goldstein, Michael A. & Namin, Elmira Shekari, 2023. "Corporate bond liquidity and yield spreads: A review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    6. Filipović, Damir & Trolle, Anders B., 2013. "The term structure of interbank risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 707-733.
    7. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Market Liquidity—Theory and Empirical Evidence ," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1289-1361, Elsevier.
    8. Cui, Jin & In, Francis & Maharaj, Elizabeth Ann, 2016. "What drives the Libor–OIS spread? Evidence from five major currency Libor–OIS spreads," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 358-375.
    9. Lieven Baele & Geert Bekaert & Koen Inghelbrecht & Min Wei, 2020. "Flights to Safety," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 689-746.
    10. Alain Monfort & Jean-Paul Renne, 2011. "Credit and Liquidity Risks in Euro-area Sovereign Yield Curves," Working Papers 2011-26, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    11. Stephanie Heck, 2022. "Corporate bond yields and returns: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(2), pages 179-201, June.
    12. Kinateder, Harald & Wagner, Niklas, 2017. "Quantitative easing and the pricing of EMU sovereign debt," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 1-12.
    13. Calice, Giovanni & Mio, RongHui & Štěrba, Filip & Vašíček, Bořek, 2015. "Short-term determinants of the idiosyncratic sovereign risk premium: A regime-dependent analysis for European credit default swaps," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 174-189.
    14. Kalimipalli, Madhu & Nayak, Subhankar & Perez, M. Fabricio, 2013. "Dynamic effects of idiosyncratic volatility and liquidity on corporate bond spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2969-2990.
    15. Alexander Bechtel & Angelo Ranaldo & Jan Wrampelmeyer, 2023. "Liquidity Risk and Funding Cost," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(2), pages 399-422.
    16. Florackis, Chris & Kontonikas, Alexandros & Kostakis, Alexandros, 2014. "Stock market liquidity and macro-liquidity shocks: Evidence from the 2007–2009 financial crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 97-117.
    17. Woon Sau Leung & Nicholas Taylor, 2013. "Testing for contagion: the impact of US structured markets on international financial markets," Chapters, in: Adrian R. Bell & Chris Brooks & Marcel Prokopczuk (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Finance, chapter 11, pages 256-284, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Alain Monfort & Jean-Paul Renne, 2013. "Default, Liquidity, and Crises: an Econometric Framework," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 221-262, March.
    19. Hertrich, Markus, 2015. "Does Credit Risk Impact Liquidity Risk? Evidence from Credit Default Swap Markets," MPRA Paper 67837, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Ramos, Henrique Pinto & Righi, Marcelo Brutti, 2020. "Liquidity, implied volatility and tail risk: A comparison of liquidity measures," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Market liquidity; Interbank credit; Money markets; Interest rates; Financial crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • 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:oup:revfin:v:23:y:2019:i:3:p:557-597.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eufaaea.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.