IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/rbnkwp/0440.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quantitative Easing and the Supply of Safe Assets: Evidence from International Bond Safety Premia

Author

Listed:
  • Christensen, Jens H. E.

    (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)

  • Mirkov, Nikola

    (Belgrade Banking Academy)

  • Zhang, Xin

    (Research Department, Central Bank of Sweden)

Abstract

Through large-scale asset purchases, widely known as quantitative easing (QE), central banks around the world have affected the supply of safe assets by buying quasi-safe bonds in exchange for truly safe reserves. We examine the pricing effects of the European Central Bank’s bond purchases in the 2015-2021 period on an international panel of bond safety premia from four highly rated countries: Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. We find statistically significant negative effects for all four countries. This points to an important international spillover channel of QE programs to bond safety premia that operates by increasing the amount of truly safe assets.

Suggested Citation

  • Christensen, Jens H. E. & Mirkov, Nikola & Zhang, Xin, 2024. "Quantitative Easing and the Supply of Safe Assets: Evidence from International Bond Safety Premia," Working Paper Series 440, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.riksbank.se/globalassets/media/rapporter/working-papers/2024/no.-440-quantitative-easing-and-the-supply-of-safe-assets-evidence-from-international-bond-safety-premia.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hohberger, Stefan & Priftis, Romanos & Vogel, Lukas, 2019. "The macroeconomic effects of quantitative easing in the euro area: Evidence from an estimated DSGE model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    2. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233-267.
    3. Houweling, Patrick & Mentink, Albert & Vorst, Ton, 2005. "Comparing possible proxies of corporate bond liquidity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1331-1358, June.
    4. Jens H. E. Christensen & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2012. "The Response of Interest Rates to US and UK Quantitative Easing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(564), pages 385-414, November.
    5. Krishnamurthy, Arvind & Vissing-Jorgensen, Annette, 2015. "The impact of Treasury supply on financial sector lending and stability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 571-600.
    6. Jens H E Christensen & Signe Krogstrup, 2019. "Transmission of Quantitative Easing: The Role of Central Bank Reserves," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 249-272.
    7. Andreasen, Martin M. & Meldrum, Andrew, 2019. "A Shadow Rate or a Quadratic Policy Rule? The Best Way to Enforce the Zero Lower Bound in the United States," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(5), pages 2261-2292, October.
    8. Borio, Claudio & Zhu, Haibin, 2012. "Capital regulation, risk-taking and monetary policy: A missing link in the transmission mechanism?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 236-251.
    9. Stefan Nagel, 2016. "The Liquidity Premium of Near-Money Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1927-1971.
    10. Joseph E. Gagnon & Matthew Raskin & Julie Remache & Brian P. Sack, 2011. "Large-scale asset purchases by the Federal Reserve: did they work?," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 17(May), pages 41-59.
    11. Richard Finlay & Sebastian Wende, 2012. "Estimating Inflation Expectations with a Limited Number of Inflation-Indexed Bonds," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 8(2), pages 111-142, June.
    12. Jens H. E. Christensen & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2019. "A New Normal for Interest Rates? Evidence from Inflation-Indexed Debt," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 933-949, December.
    13. Grisse, Christian & Nitschka, Thomas, 2015. "On financial risk and the safe haven characteristics of Swiss franc exchange rates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 153-164.
    14. Grace Xing Hu & Jun Pan & Jiang Wang, 2013. "Noise as Information for Illiquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2341-2382, December.
    15. Andreasen, Martin M. & Christensen, Jens H.E. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2019. "Term Structure Analysis with Big Data: One-Step Estimation Using Bond Prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 26-46.
    16. Kim, Don H. & Singleton, Kenneth J., 2012. "Term structure models and the zero bound: An empirical investigation of Japanese yields," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 170(1), pages 32-49.
    17. Michael D. Bauer & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2014. "The Signaling Channel for Federal Reserve Bond Purchases," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 10(3), pages 233-289, September.
    18. John Kandrac & Bernd Schlusche, 2021. "Quantitative Easing and Bank Risk Taking: Evidence from Lending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(4), pages 635-676, June.
    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. Christensen, Jens H. E. & Zhang, Xin, 2024. "Quantitative Easing, Bond Risk Premia and the Exchange Rate in a Small Open Economy," Working Paper Series 434, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    2. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Spiegel, Mark M., 2022. "Monetary reforms and inflation expectations in Japan: Evidence from inflation-indexed bonds," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 410-431.
    3. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Fischer, Eric & Shultz, Patrick J., 2021. "Bond flows and liquidity: Do foreigners matter?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    4. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Spiegel, Mark M., 2023. "Central bank credibility during COVID-19: Evidence from Japan," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    5. Remy Beauregard & Jens H. E. Christensen & Eric Fischer & Simon Zhu, 2021. "Inflation Expectations and Risk Premia in Emerging Bond Markets: Evidence from Mexico," Working Paper Series 2021-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    6. Jens H. E. Christensen & Nikola Mirkov, 2021. "The Safety Premium of Safe Assets," Working Paper Series 2019-28, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    7. Jens H. E. Christensen & Eric Fischer & Patrick Shultz, 2019. "Bond Flows and Liquidity: Do Foreigners Matter?," Working Paper Series 2019-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    8. Beauregard, Remy & Christensen, Jens H.E. & Fischer, Eric & Zhu, Simon, 2024. "Inflation expectations and risk premia in emerging bond markets: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    9. Jens H. E. Christensen & Nikola Mirkov & Xin Zhang, 2023. "Quantitative Easing and Safe Asset Scarcity: Evidence from International Bond Safety Premia," Working Paper Series 2023-23, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    10. Andreasen, Martin M. & Christensen, Jens H.E. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2019. "Term Structure Analysis with Big Data: One-Step Estimation Using Bond Prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 26-46.
    11. Jens H. E. Christensen & Signe Krogstrup, 2022. "A Portfolio Model of Quantitative Easing," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(04), pages 1-39, December.
    12. Jens H. E. Christensen & Xin Zhang, 2024. "Quantitative Easing, Bond Risk Premia and the Exchange Rate in a Small Open Economy," Working Paper Series 2024-13, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    13. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Gillan, James M., 2022. "Does quantitative easing affect market liquidity?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    14. Martin M Andreasen & Jens H E Christensen & Simon Riddell, 2021. "The TIPS Liquidity Premium [Decomposing real and nominal yield curves]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 25(6), pages 1639-1675.
    15. Stefania D’Amico & N Aaron Pancost, 2022. "Special Repo Rates and the Cross-Section of Bond Prices: The Role of the Special Collateral Risk Premium [Pr icing the term structure with linear regressions]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(1), pages 117-162.
    16. Jens H. E. Christensen & Jose A. Lopez & Paul L. Mussche, 2022. "Extrapolating Long-Maturity Bond Yields for Financial Risk Measurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8286-8300, November.
    17. Thomas M. Eisenbach & Gregory Phelan, 2022. "Fragility of Safe Asset Markets," Staff Reports 1026, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    18. Jens H. E. Christensen & Sarah Mouabbi, 2024. "The Natural Rate of Interest in the Euro Area: Evidence from Inflation-Indexed Bonds," Working Paper Series 2024-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    19. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Lopez, Jose A. & Mussche, Paul L., 2024. "International evidence on extending sovereign debt maturities," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. Christensen, Jens H.E. & Lopez, Jose A. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2015. "A probability-based stress test of Federal Reserve assets and income," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 26-43.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    term structure modeling; convenience yields; unconventional monetary policy; European Central Bank;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

    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:hhs:rbnkwp:0440. 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: Lena Löfgren (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbgovse.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.