IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/eufman/v14y2008i2p206-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic Sentiment and Yield Spreads in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Eva Ferreira
  • M. Isabel Martínez Serna
  • Eliseo Navarro
  • Gonzalo Rubio

Abstract

According to Harvey (1988) , the forecasting ability of the term spread on economic growth is due to the fact that interest rates reflect investors' expectations about the future economic situation when deciding their plans for consumption and investment. Past literature has used ex post data on output or consumption growth as proxies for their expected value. In this paper, we employ a direct measure of economic agents' expectations, the Economic Sentiment Indicator elaborated by the European Commission, to test this hypothesis. Our results indicate that a linear combination of European yield spreads explains a surprising 93.7\% of the variability of the Economic Sentiment Indicator. This ability of yield spreads to capture economic agent expectations may be the actual reason for the predictive power of yield spreads about future business cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Eva Ferreira & M. Isabel Martínez Serna & Eliseo Navarro & Gonzalo Rubio, 2008. "Economic Sentiment and Yield Spreads in Europe," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(2), pages 206-221, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:eufman:v:14:y:2008:i:2:p:206-221
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-036X.2007.00389.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-036X.2007.00389.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-036X.2007.00389.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2004. "Consumer Confidence and Consumer Spending," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 29-50, Spring.
    2. Jonathan A. Parker, 2003. "Consumption Risk and Expected Stock Returns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 376-382, May.
    3. Estrella, Arturo & Mishkin, Frederic S., 1997. "The predictive power of the term structure of interest rates in Europe and the United States: Implications for the European Central Bank," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1375-1401, July.
    4. 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.
    5. Harvey, Campbell R., 1988. "The real term structure and consumption growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 305-333, December.
    6. repec:pri:wwseco:dp223 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Campbell R. Harvey, 1997. "The Relation between the Term Structure of Interest Rates and Canadian Economic Growth," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 169-193, February.
    8. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues & Sebastian Schich, 2003. "How Stable is the Predictive Power of the Yield Curve? Evidence from Germany and the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 629-644, August.
    9. Chen, Nai-Fu, 1991. "Financial Investment Opportunities and the Macroeconomy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 529-554, June.
    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. Gupta, Rangan & Risse, Marian & Volkman, David A. & Wohar, Mark E., 2019. "The role of term spread and pattern changes in predicting stock returns and volatility of the United Kingdom: Evidence from a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test using over 250 years of data," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 391-405.
    2. Fernandez-Perez, Adrian & Fernández-Rodríguez, Fernando & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón, 2014. "The term structure of interest rates as predictor of stock returns: Evidence for the IBEX 35 during a bear market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 21-33.
    3. Andrzej Cieslik & Mahdi Ghodsi, 2021. "Economic sentiment indicators and foreign direct investment: Empirical evidence from European Union countries," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 168, pages 56-75.
    4. Sebastian Heiden & Christian Klein & Bernhard Zwergel, 2013. "Beyond Fundamentals: Investor Sentiment and Exchange Rate Forecasting," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(3), pages 558-578, June.
    5. Dimitrios Subeniotis & Dimitrios Papadopoulos & Ioannis Tampakoudis & Athina Tampakoudi, 2011. "How Inflation, Market Capitalization, Industrial Production and the Economic Sentiment Indicator Affect the EU-12 Stock Markets," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 105-120.
    6. Keiber, Karl Ludwig & Samyschew, Helene, 2016. "The pricing of sentiment risk in European stock markets," Discussion Papers 384, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    7. André Filipe Guedes Almeida & Gabriel Caldas Montes, 2020. "Effects of crime and violence on business confidence: evidence from Rio de Janeiro," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 47(7), pages 1669-1688, May.
    8. Hyde, Stuart & Sherif, Mohamed, 2010. "Consumption asset pricing and the term structure," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 99-109, February.

    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. Ferreira García, María Eva & Martínez, María Isabel & Navarro, Eliseo & Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo, 2005. "Consumer Confidence and Yield Spreads in Europe," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    2. B. De Backer & M. Deroose & Ch. Van Nieuwenhuyze, 2019. "Is a recession imminent? The signal of the yield curve," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 69-93, June.
    3. Leo Krippner, 2005. "Investigating the Relationships between the Yield Curve, Output and Inflation using an Arbitrage-Free Version of the Nelson and Siegel Class of Yield Curve Models," Working Papers in Economics 05/02, University of Waikato.
    4. Hyde, Stuart & Sherif, Mohamed, 2010. "Consumption asset pricing and the term structure," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 99-109, February.
    5. He, Zhongfang, 2009. "Forecasting output growth by the yield curve: the role of structural breaks," MPRA Paper 28208, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Jardet, Caroline, 2004. "Why did the term structure of interest rates lose its predictive power?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 509-524, May.
    7. Morell, Joseph, 2018. "The decline in the predictive power of the US term spread: A structural interpretation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 314-331.
    8. Menzie Chinn & Kavan Kucko, 2015. "The Predictive Power of the Yield Curve Across Countries and Time," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 129-156, June.
    9. Hafsa Hina & Henna Ahsan & Hania Afzal, 2022. "The Information in the Yield Spread for the Recession in the Case of Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2022:11, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    10. Hardouvelis, Gikas & Malliaropoulos, Dimitrios, 2004. "The Yield Spread as a Symmetric Predictor of Output and Inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4314, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Oral Erdogan & Paul Bennett & Cenktan Ozyildirim, 2015. "Recession Prediction Using Yield Curve and Stock Market Liquidity Deviation Measures," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(1), pages 407-422.
    12. Pawel Dlotko & Simon Rudkin, 2019. "The Topology of Time Series: Improving Recession Forecasting from Yield Spreads," Working Papers 2019-02, Swansea University, School of Management.
    13. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues & Sebastian Schich, 2003. "How Stable is the Predictive Power of the Yield Curve? Evidence from Germany and the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 629-644, August.
    14. Ibarra-Ramírez Raúl, 2021. "The Yield Curve as a Predictor of Economic Activity in Mexico: The Role of the Term Premium," Working Papers 2021-07, Banco de México.
    15. Leo Krippner & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2009. "Forecasting New Zealand's economic growth using yield curve information," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2009/18, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    16. 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.
    17. Hasse, Jean-Baptiste & Lajaunie, Quentin, 2022. "Does the yield curve signal recessions? New evidence from an international panel data analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 9-22.
    18. Fabio Moneta, 2005. "Does the Yield Spread Predict Recessions in the Euro Area?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 263-301, August.
    19. Panopoulou, Ekaterini, 2009. "Financial variables and euro area growth: A non-parametric causality analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1414-1419, November.

    More about this item

    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:bla:eufman:v:14:y:2008:i:2:p:206-221. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/efmaaea.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.