Dynamic interdependence of sovereign credit default swaps in BRICS and MIST countries

This article examines the interactions of emerging markets sovereign credit default swaps (CDS). Using a generalized vector autoregressive framework and principal component analysis, we find significant spillover effects within the two groups of emerging markets under study. Using the principal component analysis, we show that global financial market factors are important drivers of BRICS and MIST sovereign CDS spreads variability. Focusing on the forecast error variance decomposition, most of the spillover effects are documented among the emerging markets CDS. Brazil and Mexico contribute the largest net directional spillovers to the other emerging markets studied.

Highlights:

• There exist significant CDS spillover effects for MIST and BRICS countries.

• Mexico dominates the spillover effects within the MIST group while Brazil dominates the spillover effects within the BRICS group.

• As determined by principal component analysis, global financial market factors are important drivers of BRICS and MIST sovereign CDS spreads variability.

• There exists a relatively small net directional spillover from global financial market factors to the countries under study; however, the total spillover is time-varying.

• A large proportion of the forecast error variance in the markets studied comes from spillovers.

     

中国主权债务的现状分析及其风险防范对策

20世纪70年代以来,国际债务危机频繁发生,陷入危机的国家都遭受了重大损失。2007年由次贷危机所引发的经济衰退使一部分发达国家和发展中国家陷入债务危机,造成了全球的金融动荡。为此,改革国际货币体系、控制外债流动性风险、增强中国在国际市场上的融资能力具有重要的意义。     

Does local and Euro area sentiment matter for sovereign debt markets? Evidence from a bailout country

Does sentiment impact the sovereign debt markets? This article investigates whether lagged domestic and Euro area irrational sentiment (optimism or pessimism unwarranted by fundamentals) predicts future sovereign bond spreads, in Portugal, between January 2000 and December 2013. We find that domestic and Euro area sentiment negatively forecasts total return spreads and that this effect is stronger during the bailout period. Also, we find that the business sentiment is even most noticed. Therefore, Portuguese sovereign debt market is prone to the influence of investors’ sentiment.     

Safe haven or contagion? The disparate effects of Euro-zone crises on non-Euro-zone neighbours

While there have been many studies that examine contagion within the Euro-zone, this article investigates the potential contagion from changes in the Greek sovereign risk premium over 2009–2016, as measured by the yield on 10-year government bonds, to six European countries outside of the Euro-zone all of which operated a managed float against the Euro. We find evidence of contagion to potential Euro-zone ascendants (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland), but ‘flight to safety’ (or safe haven) effects for the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland.     

美国债务违约风波的深层原因探析——基于权力流散的角度

根据国际政治经济学的权力流散理论,导致美国联邦政府控制财政赤字和主权债务融资的行动能力被削弱的深层次原因是:权力从政治权威流散至市场权威、从政府流散至国会等权力机构以及国际范围的权力流散和权力重新配置。美国主权债务违约风险虽然在最后时刻被暂时化解,但美国债务问题仍将是世界经济体系中的重大不确定性因素。化解美国主权债务风险,需要美国的政治权威、市场权威以及国际社会的长期不懈努力。     

Political uncertainty,risk of Frexit and European sovereign spreads

Using data from a prediction market (crowd-based forecasts), we build a daily measure capturing the risk of Frexit related to the 2017 French presidential elections. We study how unexpected changes in this new measure of political uncertainty in France affect European sovereign spreads vis-à-vis Germany. We show that our uncertainty proxy drives not only the French sovereign spread but also the spreads of those EU countries deemed the most vulnerable to the risk of desegregation of the Euro Zone. These results suggest that specific political uncertainty affects short-term investor’s expectations and may outweigh other economic determinants of sovereign spreads shortly prior to high stake elections     

国家主权信用评级、跨国传染与股票市场回应?--基于全球48个经济体的事件研究

掌握主权信用评级变动的市场影响及其传染机制,对于投资者、国家金融安全及政府采取应对措施来说都意义重大。文章采用事件研究法,以1990-2013年全球48个经济体发生的评级事件和每日股指收益率数据为样本,实证研究了事件国评级变动对非事件国股票市场的影响及其传染渠道,结果表明：(1)评级下调会对股票市场产生显著为负的超额收益,但评级上调产生的超额收益不显著;(2)股票市场可以提前预测评级下调事件,但不能预测评级上调事件;(3)季风效应对评级调整的市场传染有一定的解释力;(4)净传染效应基本不显著,这说明评级事件的市场传染应该有经济基础,而不是由投资者心理预期这类非基本面因素造成的;(5)溢出效应可以较好地解释评级的市场传染,是评级变动影响市场及传染的主要渠道。文章的结论深化了我们对评级调整如何影响股票市场及其传染渠道的认识,也为中国防范国外主权信用评级变动风险提供了有益启示。     

欧元区主权债务期限结构的实证分析

本文通过对欧元区成员国长期债务占总债务比重与各国整体宏观经济指标相关关系的实证分析表明,欧元区各国以GDP与税收比、债务与GDP之比所描述的当期融资能力与长期债务比例呈显著负相关,由于非对称冲击的作用,各国体现出不同的特征。本文同时构建了一个政府债务效用函数的二期模型,说明主权债务期限结构安排可以通过宏观调控进行跨期平滑,以防止主权债务危机的发生。     

An Alternative Approach to the Institutional Economics of the Eurozone Crisis

I argue that the Eurozone crisis is neither a crisis of European sovereigns in the sense of governmental over-borrowing, nor a crisis of sovereign debt market over-lending. Rather, it is a function of the “sovereign debt market” institution itself. Crisis, I argue, is not an occurrence, but an element fulfilling a precise technical function within this institution. It ensures the possibility of designating — in the market’s day-to-day mechanisms rather than analytical hindsight — normal (tranquil, undisturbed) market functioning. To show this, I propose an alternative view on the institutional economics of sovereign debt markets. First, I engage literature on the emergent qualities of the institutions “market” and “firm” in product markets, concluding that the point of coalescence for markets is the approximation of an optimal observation of consumer tastes. I then examine the specific institution “financial markets,” where the optimal observation of economic fundamentals is decisive. For the specific sub-institution “sovereign debt market,” I conclude that the fundamentals in question — country fundamentals — oscillate between a status of observable fundamentals outside of markets and operationalized fundamentals influenced by market movements. This, in turn, allows me to argue that the specific case of the Eurozone crisis is due to neither of the two causes mentioned above. Rather, the notion of “crisis” takes on a technical sense within the market structure, guaranteeing the separation of herd behavior and isomorphic behavior on European sovereign debt markets. By the same token, the so-called Eurozone crisis ceases to be a crisis in the conventional sense.