Sovereign debt and reserves with liquidity and productivity crises

During the recent financial crisis, emerging economies have kept accumulating both sovereign reserves and debt. To account for this empirical fact, we model the optimal portfolio choice of a sovereign that is subject to liquidity and productivity shocks. We determine the equilibrium level of debt and its cost by solving a contracting game between sovereign and international lenders. Although raising debt increases the sovereign exposure to liquidity and productivity crises, the simultaneous accumulation of reserves can mitigate the negative effects of such crises. This mechanism rationalizes the complementarity between debt and reserves.     

Does sovereign debt ratings news spill over to international stock markets?

The evidence here indicates that sovereign debt rating and credit outlook changes of one country have an asymmetric and economically significant effect on the stock market returns of other countries over 1989–2003. There is a negative reaction of 51 basis points (two-day return spread vis-á-vis the US) to a credit ratings downgrade of one notch in a common information spillover around the world. Upgrades, however, have no significant impact on return spreads of countries abroad. Closeness (e.g., geographic proximity) and emerging market status amplify the effect of a spillover. Downgrade spillover effects at the industry level are more pronounced in traded goods and small industries.     

Asset liquidity and stock returns

We document the significant predictive power of firms' asset liquidity in the cross section of subsequent stock returns. The annual return spread between portfolios featuring the highest and lowest levels of asset liquidity is significantly positive. Our proposed measure of asset liquidity outperforms those measures developed by Gopalan et al. (2012) in predicting returns. The asset liquidity anomaly also provides significantly positive alphas when controlling for the asset pricing factors in the Fama and French (1993) three-factor model and the Carhart (1997) four-factor model. Asset liquidity exhibits strong return forecasting power even after controlling for acknowledged cross-sectional determinants of return. The positive relation between asset liquidity and future returns tends to be stronger for firms with greater asset productivity, higher quality cash flow and lower capital investment.     

Trade credit and stock liquidity

This study documents that firms with higher stock liquidity are more willing to extend trade credit and are less reliant on trade credit financing. This finding is robust to a battery of control variables, alternative measures of stock liquidity, different fixed effects, an instrumental variable approach, and a difference-in-difference approach using tick-size change as a quasi-natural experiment that exogenously increases stock liquidity. Subsample analyses show that the relation between trade credit policies and stock liquidity is more pronounced for firms that are financially constrained, dependent on external financing, and restricted by short-term debt. Overall, the evidence presented in this paper indicates that access to the equity market has important implications on firms' trade credit policies.     

Privatization and stock market liquidity

This paper shows that share issue privatization (SIP) is a major source of domestic stock market liquidity in 19 developed economies. Particularly, privatization IPOs have a negative effect on the price impact – measured by the ratio of the absolute return on the market index to turnover. This result is robust to the inclusion of controls for other observable and unobservable factors, having also considered the endogenous nature of the decision to privatize.     

Sovereign debt renegotiation and credit default swaps

A credit default swap (CDS) contract provides insurance against default. This paper incorporates the contract into a sovereign default model and demonstrates that the existence of a CDS market results in lower default probability, higher debt levels, and lower financing costs for the country. Uncertainty over the insurance payout when the debt is renegotiated explains why in the data, as the output declines, the CDS spread becomes lower than the bond spread. Finally, my results show that the 2012 CDS naked ban, that decreased the levels of CDS for European countries, is a welfare reducing policy.     

Sovereign risk assessment and agency credit ratings

Sovereign ratings are gaining importance as more governments with greater default risk borrow in international bond markets. However, while the ratings have proved useful to governments seeking market access, the difficulty of assessing sovereign risk has led to agency disagreements and public controversy over specific rating assignments. Recognising this difficulty, the financial markets have shown some scepticism toward sovereign ratings when pricing issues.     

Sovereign credit ratings during the COVID-19 pandemic

Using 603 sovereign rating actions by the three leading global rating agencies between January 2020 and March 2021, this paper shows that the severity of sovereign ratings actions is not directly affected by the intensity of the COVID-19 health crisis (proxied by case and mortality rates) but through a mechanism of its negative economic repercussions such as the economic outlook of a country and governments' response to the health crisis. Contrary to expectations, credit rating agencies pursued mostly a business-as-usual approach and reviewed sovereign ratings when they were due for regulatory purposes rather than in response to the rapid developments of the pandemic. Despite their limited reaction to the ongoing pandemic, sovereign rating news from S&P and Moody's still conveyed price-relevant information to the bond markets.     

CEO incentive compensation and stock liquidity

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We document that the CEO pay-for-performance incentive positively predicts firm’s stock liquidity. The evidence is consistent with the...     

Annual report readability and stock liquidity

We examine the effect of annual report textual complexity on firms’ stock liquidity. Using techniques from computational linguistics, we predict and find that less readable filings are associated with lower stock liquidity. Our study provides evidence that difficult‐to‐read annual reports hinder investors’ ability to process and analyze information contained in corporate annual reports, reducing thereby their willingness to trade which decreases stock liquidity. Our findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, including endogeneity, use of alternative estimation techniques, and use of alternative liquidity and readability proxies.     

Sovereign Credit Risk,Banks' Government Support,and Bank Stock Returns around the World

We explore the joint effect of expected government support to banks and changes in sovereign credit ratings on bank stock returns using data for banks in 37 countries between 1995 and 2011. We find that sovereign credit rating downgrades have a large negative effect on bank stock returns for those banks that are expected to receive stronger support from their governments. This result is stronger for banks in advanced economies where governments are better positioned to provide that support. Our results suggest that stock market investors perceive sovereigns and domestic banks as markedly interconnected, partly through government guarantees.     

COVID-19, government policy responses,and stock market liquidity around the world: A note

Unprecedented non-pharmaceutical interventions targeted to curb the spread of COVID-19 exerted a dramatic impact on the global economy and financial markets. This study is the first attempt to investigate the influence of these government policy responses on global stock market liquidity. To this end, we examine daily data from 49 countries for the period January-April 2020. We demonstrate that the impact of the interventions is limited in scale and scope. Workplace and school closures deteriorate liquidity in emerging markets, while information campaigns on the novel coronavirus facilitate trading activity.     

CEO inside debt holdings and credit ratings

In this paper we investigate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) inside debt holdings (pension benefits and deferred compensation) and long-term credit ratings. We provide evidence that firms with a higher level of inside debt holdings enjoy better credit ratings. Our results are robust to the use of alternative regression estimation and alternative measures of key variables. We employ instrumental variable–based two-stage least squares regression and instrumental variable regression estimation using heteroskedasticity-based instruments to mitigate the endogeneity concern. In addition, we employ propensity-matched sample and entropy balancing estimates to alleviate endogeneity concerns. Our cross-sectional analyses reveal that the relationship between CEO inside debt holdings and credit ratings is more pronounced in firms with a poor information environment, a weak monitoring mechanism, and powerful CEOs. Overall, findings from our study suggest that credit rating agencies evaluate CEO insider debt holdings positively in assessing the creditworthiness of a firm.     

Sovereign liquidity crises: Analytics and implications for public policy

This paper offers an analytical framework with which to assess some recent proposals for strengthening the international financial architecture. We develop a model of sovereign liquidity crises that reflects two sources of financial stress – weak fundamentals and self-fulfilling expectations. We examine the nature of the underlying co-ordination game and investigate the properties of the unique equilibrium. In so doing, we are able to characterise the welfare costs of belief-driven crises, which we find to be potentially significant. We also evaluate some recent policy proposals including prudent debt and liquidity management, capital controls, greater information disclosure, and the efficacy of monetary policy tightening in the midst of crisis.     

Sovereign debt disputes: A database on government coerciveness during debt crises

This paper measures “debt disputes” between governments and foreign private creditors in periods of sovereign debt crises. We construct an index of government coerciveness, consisting of 9 objective sub-indicators. Each of these sub-indicators captures unilateral government actions imposed on foreign banks and bondholders. The results provide the first systematic account of debt crises that goes beyond a binary categorization of default versus non-default. Overall, government behavior and rhetoric show a strong variability, ranging from highly confrontational to very smooth crisis resolution processes. In a preliminary analysis on the determinants of coercive behavior, we find political institutions to be significant, while economic and financial factors play a lesser role. These results open up an agenda for future research.     

Exchange trading rules and stock market liquidity

We examine stock exchange trading rules for market manipulation, insider trading, and broker–agency conflict, across countries and over time, in 42 stock exchanges around the world. Some stock exchanges have extremely detailed rules that explicitly prohibit specific manipulative practices, but others use less precise and broadly framed rules. We create new indices for market manipulation, insider trading, and broker–agency conflict based on the specific provisions in the trading rules of each stock exchange. We show that differences in exchange trading rules, over time and across markets, significantly affect liquidity.     

Sovereign credit ratings: Discovering unorthodox factors and variables

The presence of different rating agencies and nuanced viewpoints on the determinants of sovereign credit ratings has led to convoluted and contested narratives; hence a need to arrive at common ground on both the significant and prioritised factors important in sovereign rating assessments. Furthermore, much research has focused on a regression analysis of variables which were determined as important to sovereign ratings on an a priori theoretical basis, while excluding a factor analysis which integrates variables within a multifaceted framework. This paper argues that the variables used in existing research are subject to a priori theoretical selection rather than being selected empirically. There has also been an insufficient utilisation of rating agencies' methodology papers in assisting with the selection of variables, and a lack of analysis of the rating agencies' application of factors. Hence, this paper unearths both new factors and variables relevant to assessing sovereign ratings. The findings suggest that there needs to be a broadened understanding of indicators used to analyse and assign sovereign ratings, and a prioritisation of analysed aspects following the inclusion of unorthodox factors and variables.     

Sell-order liquidity and the cross-section of expected stock returns

We estimate buy- and sell-order illiquidity measures (lambdas) for a comprehensive sample of NYSE stocks. We show that sell-order liquidity is priced more strongly than buy-order liquidity in the cross-section of equity returns. Indeed, our analysis indicates that the liquidity premium in equities emanates predominantly from the sell-order side. We also find that the average difference between sell and buy lambdas is generally positive throughout our sample period. Both buy and sell lambdas are significantly positively correlated with measures of funding liquidity such as the TED spread as well option implied volatility.     

主权债务问题:全球同此凉热

为应对2008年国际金融危机对自身经济造成的冲击,大部分国家和地区都推出了积极的财政政策和宽松的货币政策,以抑制经济下滑。然而,这些政策虽然在一定程度上稳定了经济金融形势,抑制了危机的扩散和蔓延,却为自身财政增加了不少负担,各国和地区普遍呈现出财政支出增加、财政赤字显现、政府债务规模放大等现象,为主权债务问题爆发埋下了隐患。不仅在"欧猪五国"2009年末,由标普、穆迪、惠誉三大