IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecb/ecbrbu/20230103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The safe asset potential of EU-issued bonds

Author

Listed:
  • Bletzinger, Tilman
  • Greif, William
  • Schwaab, Bernd

Abstract

A safe asset is of high credit quality, retains its value in bad times and is traded in liquid markets. We show that bonds issued by the European Union (EU) are widely considered to be of high credit quality, and that their yield spread over German Bunds remained contained during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic recession. Recent issuances under the EU’s SURE and NGEU initiatives helped improve EU bonds' market liquidity from previously low levels, also reducing liquidity risk premia. Eurosystem purchases and holdings of EU bonds did not impair market liquidity. Currently, one obstacle to EU bonds achieving a genuine euro-denominated safe asset status, approaching that of Bunds, lies in the one-off, time-limited nature of the EU’s COVID-19-related policy responses. JEL Classification: G12, H63

Suggested Citation

  • Bletzinger, Tilman & Greif, William & Schwaab, Bernd, 2023. "The safe asset potential of EU-issued bonds," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 103.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbrbu:2023:0103:
    Note: 2652553
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/economic-research/resbull/2023/html/ecb.rb230116~e55fb14a74.en.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/economic-research/resbull/2023/html/ecb.rb230116~e55fb14a74.en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gossé Jean-Baptiste, & Anass Mourjane., 2021. "A European safe asset: new perspectives [Actif sûr européen : nouvelles perspectives]," Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 234.
    2. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Sam Langfield & Marco Pagano & Ricardo Reis & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Dimitri Vayanos, 2017. "ESBies: safety in the tranches," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 32(90), pages 175-219.
    3. Gorton, Gary & Ordoñez, Guillermo, 2022. "The supply and demand for safe assets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 132-147.
    4. Leonello, Agnese, 2018. "Government guarantees and the two-way feedback between banking and sovereign debt crises," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 592-619.
    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. Rodríguez-Vives Marta, 2023. "Towards a Common EU Debt: Where Do We Stand?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Sciendo, vol. 58(6), pages 305-310, December.

    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. Tilman Bletzinger & William Greif & Bernd Schwaab, 2022. "Can EU Bonds Serve as Euro-Denominated Safe Assets?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-13, November.
    2. Panizza, Ugo & Fatás, Antonio & Ghosh, Atish R. & ,, 2019. "The Motives to Borrow," CEPR Discussion Papers 13735, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Jochem, Axel & Lecomte, Ernest, 2024. "Risky sovereign bond holdings by commercial banks in the euro area: Do safe assets availability and differences in bank funding costs play a role?," Discussion Papers 35/2024, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Janse Kalin Anev, 2023. "Developing European Safe Assets," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Sciendo, vol. 58(6), pages 315-319, December.
    5. Russell Cooper & Kalin Nikolov, 2018. "Government Debt And Banking Fragility: The Spreading Of Strategic Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1905-1925, November.
    6. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2017. "The Safe Assets Shortage Conundrum," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 29-46, Summer.
    7. Koetter, Michael & Krause, Thomas & Tonzer, Lena, 2019. "Delay determinants of European Banking Union implementation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-20.
    8. Eric Monnet & Miklos Vari, 2023. "A Dilemma between Liquidity Regulation and Monetary Policy: Some History and Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(4), pages 915-944, June.
    9. Doris Prammer & Lukas Reiss, 2018. "How to increase fiscal stabilization at the euro area level?," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q2/18, pages 111-131.
    10. Emmanuel Farhi & Matteo Maggiori, 2018. "A Model of the International Monetary System," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 295-355.
    11. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Luis Garicano & Philip R. Lane & Marco Pagano & Ricardo Reis & Tano Santos & David Thesmar & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Dimitri Vayanos, 2016. "The Sovereign-Bank Diabolic Loop and ESBies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 508-512, May.
    12. Wei Cui & Sören Radde, 2020. "Search-based Endogenous Asset Liquidity and the Macroeconomy [Why Don’t US Issuers Demand European Fees for IPOs?]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2221-2269.
    13. Ricardo J Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi, 2018. "The Safety Trap," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 223-274.
    14. Micossi, Stefano & Peirce, Fabrizia, 2020. "Overcoming the gridlock in EMU decision-making," CEPS Papers 26688, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    15. Spyros Alogoskoufis & Sam Langfield, 2020. "Regulating the Doom Loop," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(4), pages 251-292, September.
    16. Gori, Filippo, 2018. "Dissecting the ‘doom loop’: the bank-sovereign credit risk nexus during the US debt ceiling crisis," MPRA Paper 87994, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Jean Pisani-Ferry, 2018. "Euro area reform: An anatomy of the debate," SciencePo Working papers hal-03391908, HAL.
    18. Sahibzada, Irfan Ullah & Rizwan, Muhammad Suhail & Qureshi, Anum, 2022. "Impact of sovereign credit ratings on systemic risk and the moderating role of regulatory reforms: An international investigation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    19. Chien, YiLi & Wen, Yi, 2022. "The determination of public debt under both aggregate and idiosyncratic uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    20. Crosignani, Matteo & Faria-e-Castro, Miguel & Fonseca, Luís, 2020. "The (Unintended?) consequences of the largest liquidity injection ever," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 97-112.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    EU-issued bonds; European Union; NextGenerationEU (NGEU); safe assets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    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:ecbrbu:2023:0103:. 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.