IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v33y2020i1p212-238..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Negative Swap Spreads and Limited Arbitrage

Author

Listed:
  • Urban J Jermann

Abstract

Since October 2008, fixed rates for interest rate swaps with a 30-year maturity have been mostly below Treasury rates with the same maturity. Under standard assumptions, this implies the existence of arbitrage opportunities. This paper presents a model for pricing interest rate swaps, where frictions for holding bonds limit arbitrage. I analytically show that negative swap spreads should not be surprising. In the calibrated model, swap spreads can reasonably match empirical counterparts without the need for large demand imbalances in the swap market. Empirical evidence is consistent with the relation between term spreads and swap spreads in the model.Received April 16, 2017; editorial decision Januray 3, 2019 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.

Suggested Citation

  • Urban J Jermann, 2020. "Negative Swap Spreads and Limited Arbitrage," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(1), pages 212-238.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:33:y:2020:i:1:p:212-238.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhz030
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Johannes & Suresh Sundaresan, 2007. "The Impact of Collateralization on Swap Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 383-410, February.
    2. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2003. "Closing small open economy models," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 163-185, October.
    3. Dimitri Vayanos & Jean‐Luc Vila, 2021. "A Preferred‐Habitat Model of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 77-112, January.
    4. Jun Liu & Francis A. Longstaff & Ravit E. Mandell, 2006. "The Market Price of Risk in Interest Rate Swaps: The Roles of Default and Liquidity Risks," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(5), pages 2337-2360, September.
    5. Stepanchuk, Serhiy & Tsyrennikov, Viktor, 2015. "Portfolio and welfare consequences of debt market dominance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 89-101.
    6. Robin Greenwood & Samuel G. Hanson & Jeremy C. Stein & Adi Sunderam, 2017. "Strengthening and Streamlining Bank Capital Regulation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(2 (Fall)), pages 479-565.
    7. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    8. Gupta, Anurag & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2000. "An empirical examination of the convexity bias in the pricing of interest rate swaps," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 239-279, February.
    9. Dow, James & Gorton, Gary, 1994. "Arbitrage Chains," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(3), pages 819-849, July.
    10. Jermann, Urban J. & Yue, Vivian Z., 2018. "Interest rate swaps and corporate default," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 104-120.
    11. Jun Liu, 2004. "Losing Money on Arbitrage: Optimal Dynamic Portfolio Choice in Markets with Arbitrage Opportunities," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 611-641.
    12. Stefan Avdjiev & Wenxin Du & Cathérine Koch & Hyun Song Shin, 2019. "The Dollar, Bank Leverage, and Deviations from Covered Interest Parity," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 193-208, September.
    13. Xavier Gabaix & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Olivier Vigneron, 2007. "Limits of Arbitrage: Theory and Evidence from the Mortgage‐Backed Securities Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 557-595, April.
    14. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    15. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    16. Nina Boyarchenko & Pooja Gupta & Nick Steele & Jacqueline Yen, 2018. "Negative swap spreads," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue 24-2, pages 1-14.
    17. Pierre Collin‐Dufresne & Bruno Solnik, 2001. "On the Term Structure of Default Premia in the Swap and LIBOR Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 1095-1115, June.
    18. Hayne E. Leland., 1998. "Agency Costs, Risk Management, and Capital Structure," Research Program in Finance Working Papers RPF-278, University of California at Berkeley.
    19. Denis Gromb & Dimitri Vayanos, 2010. "Limits of Arbitrage," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 251-275, December.
    20. Mendoza, Enrique G, 1991. "Real Business Cycles in a Small Open Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 797-818, September.
    21. Judd, Kenneth L., 1992. "Projection methods for solving aggregate growth models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 410-452, December.
    22. Feldhütter, Peter & Lando, David, 2008. "Decomposing swap spreads," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 375-405, May.
    23. Michael Faulkender, 2005. "Hedging or Market Timing? Selecting the Interest Rate Exposure of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 931-962, April.
    24. Tuckman, Bruce & Vila, Jean-Luc, 1992. "Arbitrage with Holding Costs: A Utility-Based Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1283-1302, September.
    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. Zhengyang Jiang & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Mindy Z. Xiaolan, 2024. "The U.S. Public Debt Valuation Puzzle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(4), pages 1309-1347, July.
    2. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Chase P. Ross & Sharon Y. Ross & Kaushik Vasudevan, 2024. "Quantities and Covered-Interest Parity," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-061, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Darrell Duffie & Michael Fleming & Frank Keane & Claire Nelson & Or Shachar & Peter Van Tassel, 2023. "Dealer capacity and US Treasury market functionality," BIS Working Papers 1138, Bank for International Settlements.
    4. Patrick Augustin & Mikhail Chernov & Lukas Schmid & Dongho Song, 2024. "The Term Structure of Covered Interest Rate Parity Violations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 2077-2114, June.
    5. He, Zhiguo & Nagel, Stefan & Song, Zhaogang, 2022. "Treasury inconvenience yields during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 57-79.
    6. Du, Wenxin & Hébert, Benjamin & Li, Wenhao, 2023. "Intermediary balance sheets and the treasury yield curve," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    7. Augustin, P. & Chernov, M. & Schmid, L. & Song, D., 2021. "Benchmark interest rates when the government is risky," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 74-100.
    8. Chernov, Mikhail & Augustin, Patrick & Schmid, Lukas & Song, Dongho, 2020. "The term structure of CIP violations," CEPR Discussion Papers 14774, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Rashid, Abdul & Hassan, M. Kabir & Shah, Muhammad Abdul Rehman, 2020. "On the role of Islamic and conventional banks in the monetary policy transmission in Malaysia: Do size and liquidity matter?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    10. Longzhen Fan & Xin Hou & Qian Sun, 2023. "A monetary policy–based explanation of swap spreads in China," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(11), pages 1645-1667, November.
    11. Hanson, Samuel & Malkhozov, Aytek & Venter, Gyuri, 2022. "Demand-supply imbalance risk and long-term swap spreads," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118868, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Hartley, Jonathan S. & Jermann, Urban J., 2024. "The pricing of U.S. Treasury floating rate notes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    13. Hattori, Takahiro, 2022. "Does the swap-covered interest parity still hold in long-term capital markets after the financial crisis? Evidence from cross-currency basis swaps," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 224-240.
    14. Klingler, Sven & Sundaresan, Suresh, 2023. "Diminishing treasury convenience premiums: Effects of dealers’ excess demand and balance sheet constraints," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 55-69.
    15. Khetan, Umang & Neamțu, Ioana & Sen, Ishita, 2023. "The market for sharing interest rate risk: quantities behind prices," Bank of England working papers 1031, Bank of England.
    16. Hanson, Samuel G. & Malkhozov, Aytek & Venter, Gyuri, 2024. "Demand-and-supply imbalance risk and long-term swap spreads," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    17. Li, Shaoyu & Zhu, Chunhui & Shang, Yuhuang, 2023. "Hedging demand and near-zero swap spreads: Evidence from the Chinese interest rate swap market," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 170-185.
    18. Kargar, Mahyar, 2021. "Heterogeneous intermediary asset pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 505-532.
    19. Jonathan Goldberg & Yoshio Nozawa, 2021. "Liquidity Supply in the Corporate Bond Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(2), pages 755-796, April.
    20. Huber, Amy Wang, 2023. "Market power in wholesale funding: A structural perspective from the triparty repo market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(2), pages 235-259.
    21. Jiakai Chen & Haoyang Liu & Asani Sarkar & Zhaogang Song, 2020. "Dealers and the Dealer of Last Resort: Evidence from the Agency MBS Markets in the COVID-19 Crisis," Staff Reports 933, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    22. Hafidh, Aula Ahmad, 2021. "Responses of Islamic banking variables to monetary policy shocks in Indonesia," Islamic Economic Studies, The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), vol. 28, pages 174-190.
    23. Jappelli, Ruggero & Pelizzon, Loriana & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2023. "Quantitative easing, the repo market, and the term structure of interest rates," SAFE Working Paper Series 395, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    24. David-Pur, Lior & Galil, Koresh & Rosenboim, Mosi, 2020. "The dynamics of sovereign yields over swap rates in the Eurozone market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).

    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. Sven Klingler & Suresh Sundaresan, 2018. "An explanation of negative swap spreads: demand for duration from underfunded pension plans," BIS Working Papers 705, Bank for International Settlements.
    2. Augustin, P. & Chernov, M. & Schmid, L. & Song, D., 2021. "Benchmark interest rates when the government is risky," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 74-100.
    3. Hanson, Samuel & Malkhozov, Aytek & Venter, Gyuri, 2022. "Demand-supply imbalance risk and long-term swap spreads," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118868, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Hanson, Samuel G. & Malkhozov, Aytek & Venter, Gyuri, 2024. "Demand-and-supply imbalance risk and long-term swap spreads," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. 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.
    6. Chernov, Mikhail & Augustin, Patrick & Schmid, Lukas & Song, Dongho, 2020. "The term structure of CIP violations," CEPR Discussion Papers 14774, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Xiao, Tim, 2012. "An Economic Examination of Collateralization in Different Financial Markets," MPRA Paper 47371, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Guillermo Andrés Cangrejo Jiménez, 2014. "La Estructura a Plazos del Riesgo Interbancario," Documentos de Trabajo 12172, Universidad del Rosario.
    9. Duarte, Jefferson & Longstaff, Francis A. & Yu, Fan, 2005. "Risk and Return in Fixed Income Arbitage: Nickels in Front of a Steamroller?," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt6zx6m7fp, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    10. Nina Boyarchenko & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Pooja Gupta & Or Shachar & Peter Van Tassel, 2018. "Bank-Intermediated Arbitrage," Liberty Street Economics 20181018, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    11. Zhigu He & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2012. "A Model of Capital and Crises," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 735-777.
    12. Filipović, Damir & Trolle, Anders B., 2013. "The term structure of interbank risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 707-733.
    13. Rösch, Dominik, 2021. "The impact of arbitrage on market liquidity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 195-213.
    14. Anagnostopoulos Alexis & Tang Xin, 2015. "Evaluating linear approximations in a two-country model with occasionally binding borrowing constraints," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 43-91, January.
    15. Tim Xiao, 2017. "A New Model for Pricing Collateralized Financial Derivatives," Post-Print hal-01800559, HAL.
    16. Jiakai Chen & Haoyang Liu & Asani Sarkar & Zhaogang Song, 2020. "Dealers and the Dealer of Last Resort: Evidence from the Agency MBS Markets in the COVID-19 Crisis," Staff Reports 933, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    17. Li, Shuyun May & Dressler, Scott, 2011. "Business cycle asymmetry via occasionally binding international borrowing constraints," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 33-41, March.
    18. Aldrich, Eric M. & Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Ronald Gallant, A. & Rubio-Ramírez, Juan F., 2011. "Tapping the supercomputer under your desk: Solving dynamic equilibrium models with graphics processors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 386-393, March.
    19. Heer Burkhard & Maußner Alfred, 2011. "Value Function Iteration as a Solution Method for the Ramsey Model," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(4), pages 494-515, August.
    20. Chung, Hon-Lun & Chan, Wai-Sum, 2010. "Impact of credit spreads, monetary policy and convergence trading on swap spreads," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 118-126, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

    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:rfinst:v:33:y:2020:i:1:p:212-238.. 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/sfsssea.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.