关于欧洲主权债务问题与欧元区域制度改革的思考

近来,希腊、葡萄牙、西班牙和爱尔兰等多个欧元区国家均面临主权债务违约风险。这一问题的发生,既有希腊等国自身财政管理的原因,也反映出欧元区体制中存在的一系列长期性、结构性和制度性问题。如果不能妥善解决欧元区国家的主权债务问题,不仅将拖累欧元区经济发展,也会对世界经济金融复苏造成冲击。欧洲主权债务问题的出现,对我国财政预算管理也有一定警示作用。     

News spillovers from the Greek debt crisis: Impact on the Eurozone financial sector

We examine the impact of changes in Greek sovereign yield spreads on abnormal returns of financial sector stocks for a sample of Eurozone countries, during the Greek debt crisis. We find that increases in yield spreads are associated with negative abnormal returns on financial stocks in the Portugal, Spain and Netherlands. These abnormal returns are driven in part by ratings downgrades and other unfavorable news announcements about Greece. We isolate the effects of known transmission channels–impairment of financial firms’ asset base due to cross-holdings of Greek bonds, from increases in domestic interest rates and higher funding costs. Our analysis indicates that news events lead to spillovers in excess of what can be explained by these channels of transmission.     

欧元区国债强制引入集体行动条款的可能影响及启示

自2013年1月1日起,欧元区各国新发行且期限超过一年的国债,必须引入集体行动条款（CACs）。文章介绍分析了欧元区国债引入CACs条款的历程、CACs条款主要内容,多角度分析了其相关影响。文章指出,此次欧元区国债强制引入CACs条款,开启了发达国家大规模引入该条款先例,对债券市场特别是欧元区国债投融资可能产生重要影响,如未来出现重组,欧央行及成员国央行均可能出现损失。     

Price effects of sovereign debt auctions in the euro-zone: The role of the crisis

We show that new public debt issues cause an auction cycle for Italian secondary-market debt, but not for German debt. The cycle is mainly observed for the crisis period since mid-2007 and is larger when the crisis, as measured by yield volatility and CDS spreads of primary dealers, is more intense. Volatility seems to be the main driving factor. The cycle is also present in secondary-market series with maturities close to the auctioned series. Our findings are consistent with the theory of primary dealers’ limited risk-bearing capacity. There is also weak evidence of spill-overs from foreign auctions to domestic markets.     

Bank use of sovereign CDS in the Eurozone crisis: Hedging and risk incentives

Using a comprehensive dataset from German banks, we document the usage of sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) during the European sovereign debt crisis of 2008–2013. Banks used the sovereign CDS market to extend, rather than hedge, their long exposures to sovereign risk during this period. Lower loan exposure to sovereign risk is associated with greater protection selling in CDS, the effect being weaker when sovereign risk is high. Bank and country risk variables are mostly not associated with protection selling. The findings are driven by the actions of a few non-dealer banks which sold CDS protection aggressively at the onset of the crisis, but started covering their positions at its height while simultaneously shifting their assets towards sovereign bonds and loans. Our findings underscore the importance of accounting for derivatives exposure in building a complete picture and understanding fully the economic drivers of the bank-sovereign nexus of risk.     

Economic policy uncertainty and sovereign credit rating decisions: Panel quantile evidence for the Eurozone

We employ a panel quantile framework that quantifies the relative importance of quantitative and qualitative factors across the conditional distribution of sovereign credit ratings in the Eurozone area. We find that regulatory quality and competitiveness have a stronger impact for low rated countries whereas GDP per capita is a major driver of high rated countries. A reduction in the current account deficit leads to a rating or outlook upgrade for low rated countries. Economic policy uncertainty impacts negatively on credit ratings across the conditional distribution; however, the impact is stronger for the lower rated countries. In other words, the creditworthiness of low rated countries takes a much bigger ‘hit’ than that of high rated countries when European policy uncertainty is on the rise.     

Linkages between Indian and US financial markets: impact of global financial crisis and Eurozone debt crisis

This paper examines inter-linkages between Indian and US equity, foreign exchange and money markets using the vector autoregressive-multivariate GARCH-BEKK framework. We investigate the impact of global financial crisis (GFC) and Eurozone debt crisis (EZDC) on the conditional volatility and conditional correlation estimates derived from the multivariate GARCH model for Indian and US financial markets. Our results indicate that there is significant bidirectional causality-in-mean between the Indian stock market returns and the Rs./USD market returns, and significant unidirectional causality-in-mean from the US stock market returns to the Indian stock market returns. As regards volatility spillovers, we find that volatility in the Indian stock market rises in response to domestic as well as US financial market shocks but Indian financial market shocks do not impact the US markets. Further, impact of the recent crisis episodes on the covariance matrix is found to be significant. We find that volatility in the Indian and US financial markets significantly amplified during GFC. The conditional correlations across asset markets were significantly accentuated in the wake of the two crisis episodes. The impact of GFC on cross-market conditional correlations is higher for majority of the asset market pairs in comparison to the EZDC.     

The Eurozone banking sector in the time of COVID-19: Measuring volatility connectedness

This article investigates the volatility connectedness of the Eurozone banking system over the last 15 years (from 2005 to 2020). Applying the Diebold-Yilmaz Connectedness Index model to the daily stock return volatilities of 30 major Eurozone banks, we are able to measure the risk spillover effects and to capture the COVID-19 outbreak's impact on banking stability. The empirical findings show that the 30 banks are highly interconnected. Furthermore, we show the strong impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the volatility dynamics, i.e., on the structure of the Eurozone banking system. Dynamically, we find that volatility connectedness increases during crises, reaching its maximum peak at the time of COVID-19. The analysis points out the critical role of volatility transmission played by large banks, highlighting the “too-big-to-fail” characteristic of this banking system. However, we find that small-medium banks are important actors of contagion, supporting the thesis that the Eurozone banking system is also “too-interconnected to fail.” Finally, we document the heterogeneity effect of the COVID-19 pandemic between Eurozone banking systems. This heterogeneity impact could be a future source of financial instability within the Eurozone.     

Domestic Banks As Lightning Rods? Home Bias and Information during the Eurozone Crisis

European banks have been criticized for holding excessive domestic government debt during the recent Eurozone crisis, which may have intensified the diabolic loop between sovereign and bank credit risks. By using a novel bank-level data set covering the entire timeline of the Eurozone crisis, I first reconfirm that the crisis led to the reallocation of sovereign debt from foreign to domestic banks. In contrast to the recent literature focusing only on sovereign debt, I show that the banks' private-sector exposures were (at least) equally affected by the rise in home bias. Consistent with this pattern, I propose a new debt reallocation channel based on informational frictions and show that the informationally closer foreign banks increase their relative exposures when the sovereign risk rises. The effect of informational closeness is economically meaningful and robust to the use of different information measures and controls for alternative channels of sovereign debt reallocation.     

Determinants of sovereign yield spreads in the Eurozone: A Bayesian approach

We analyze the determinants of sovereign yields spreads of EMU member states applying Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to annual panel data from 1999 to 2009. BMA is well-suited in cases of small samples and high model uncertainty. This seems to be the case in modeling sovereign yield spreads in the Eurozone since the literature reports heterogeneous results with respect to significant explanatory variables. We are testing a number of variables reported to be significant in the literature and find that the most likely country specific drivers of yield spreads are fiscal variables such as budget balance and government debt, as well as external sector variables, such as terms of trade, trade balance and openness. Global financing conditions, indicated by the US interest rate, and market sentiments, indicated by corporate bond spreads, are likely to influence sovereign yield spreads.     

Determinants of corporate debt securities in the Euro area

Abstract

This study examines the macroeconomic determinants of corporate debt securities in the euro area. The financing costs, as approximated by the cost of debt securities vis-à-vis other sources of corporate finance, and financing needs, as captured by mergers and acquisitions and gross domestic product, are found to be significant determinants in the short and long run. The empirical results are also supportive of substitution between debt security and internal financing unrelated to cost of differentials in the short run and of differences in the determination of long- and short-term debt securities. These findings are robust across different samples and specifications.     

当前国际政府债务问题的影响与警示

为应对席卷全球的国际金融危机,各国政府纷纷采取经济刺激措施,代替民间企业和金融机构承担危机成本,这不可避免带来一定的政府债务问题。随着时间的推移,部分政府债务问题逐步凸显,成为全球经济走出危机阴影的障碍。文章分析认为,当前国际上政府债务问题呈现脆弱性、复杂性、集中性和长期性特征,成为全球经济复苏的绊脚石,甚至会给世界各国经济带来灾难性影响。文章同时总结了国际政府债务问题带给我国的启示。     

The impact of the sovereign debt crisis on the activity of Italian banks

We examine the implications of the sovereign debt tensions on the Italian credit market by estimating the effect of the 10-year BTP-Bund spread on a wide array of bank interest rates, categories of loans and income statement variables. We exploit the heterogeneity between large and small intermediaries to assess to what extent the transmission of sovereign risk differed in relation with different banks’ balance-sheet characteristics and business strategies. Regarding the cost of funding, we find that changes in the BTP-Bund spread have a sizeable effect on the interest rates on term deposits and newly issued bonds but virtually no effect on overnight deposits. Furthermore, the sovereign spread significantly affects the cost of credit for firms and households and exerts a negative effect on loan growth. All these results are magnified when considering alone the five largest banks, which are typically less capitalized, have a larger funding gap and incidence of bad loans and rely more on non-traditional banking activities. Sovereign tensions also affect the main items of banks’ income statement.     

希腊主权债务危机的成因与影响

日益严重的希腊主权债务危机将希腊推向了欧元区主权债务问题的风口浪尖,由此也形成了影响欧元区稳定运行的严峻挑战。该文基于国际金融危机对希腊经济与财政运行状况的影响,分析了引起希腊主权债务危机的成因及解决途径,指出解决希腊主权债务危机除了希腊自身的努力外,依然需要国际社会尤其是欧盟的援助。从全球的角度看,其他经济体的主权债务问题也同样值得警惕和重视。     

Volatility spillovers and hedging effectiveness between the oil market and Eurozone sectors: A tale of two crises

This paper aims to analyze the mean and volatility spillovers between oil prices and the Eurozone supersector returns. It uses daily data of the Brent prices and 19 Eurozone supersector indices for the period from August 2004 to August 2015. This area experienced two important instabilities in that period, the global financial crisis (GFC) and the Euro debt crisis (EDC). Because financial turbulences are suspected to induce changes in the volatility dynamics, the full sample is divided into three sub-samples. Empirically, this study employs a bivariate VAR-BEKK-GARCH model that allows for transmission in volatility. The obtained volatilities and covariances are used to compute the optimal weights and hedge ratios for oil–stock portfolio holdings. The findings show that both mean and volatility spillovers between the oil market and the different Eurozone sectors are time-varying and heterogeneous. In the GFC sub-period, there is evidence of contagion effects because there is an intensification of volatility spillovers. The EDC does not seem to have induced any particular change in the spillover effects. The optimal weights, hedge ratios, and correlation analysis results allow an accurate understanding of the time series relationship between the two markets and are useful for financial market participants and policymakers.     

Determinants of financial covenants and pricing of debt in private debt contracts: the UK evidence

This paper presents details of financial covenants given by a sample drawn from the largest 200 non-financial quoted firms in the UK in private debt contracts and analyses these data to see whether there are relationships between the nature of the covenants given and firm characteristics. Data were obtained from 72 firms, of which 17 gave no financial covenants. Firm size was found to be the only significant factor influencing whether firms did or did not give covenants as well as the only factor which influenced the margin given on debt. Some types of covenants given were found to be different from those found in previous research. In particular, there is greater use of EBITDA as a base for both interest cover and gearing covenants. This shows the importance of cash flow based lending as opposed to asset based lending for general financing for large firms.     

Modelling correlation dynamics of EMU sovereign debt markets during the recent turmoil

The purpose of the present study is to explicitly model the correlation dynamics of Eurozone sovereign debt markets. Our analysis runs from 2000 through 2014. Time varying correlations are derived from a dynamic conditional correlation GARCH model (t-cDCC model). We document substantial variability in correlations that is time and region-dependent. Evidence suggests that the Lehman collapse coupled with the German banks’ bailout programme and the events that followed have undermined sovereign debt integration. Moreover, sensitivity analysis provides useful insights that global and regional risk factors play pivotal role in explaining correlation structure both before and after the onset of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis. We believe that our results entail important implications for market authorities, international fixed income portfolio diversification and asset allocation.     

The systemic risk of European banks during the financial and sovereign debt crises

European banks became a source of risk to global financial markets during the financial crisis and attention to the European banking sector increased during the sovereign debt crisis. To measure the systemic risk of European banks, we calculate a distress insurance premium (DIP), which integrates the characteristics of bank size, probability of default, and correlation. Based on this measure, the systemic risk of European banks reached its height in late 2011 around €500 billion. We find that this was largely due to sovereign default risk. The DIP methodology is also used to measure the systemic contribution of individual banks. This approach identifies the large systemically important European banks, but Italian and Spanish banks as a group notably increased in systemic importance during the sample period. Bank-specific fundamentals like capital-asset ratios predict the one-year-ahead systemic risk contributions.     

Realized (co)variances of eurozone sovereign yields during the crisis: The impact of news and the Securities Markets Programme

We use realized variances and covariances based on intraday data to measure the dependence structure of eurozone sovereign yields. Our analysis focuses on the impact of news, obtained from the Eurointelligence newsflash, on the dependence structure. More news tends to raise the volatility of yields of financially-distressed countries and to decrease the covariance of distressed countries’ yields with German bond yields, suggesting a potential flight-to-quality effect. Common news about the euro crisis and news about specific countries tend to raise the covariance of yields between distressed countries, indicating potential crisis spill-over effects. However, we do not detect spillover effects from news about third countries to the covariance between other country pairs. Bond purchases by the ECB under its Securities Markets Programme (SMP) mitigate the negative crisis spillovers among the distressed countries and reduce the potential flight-to-quality from the distressed countries to Germany.     

An asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation analysis of linkages of European financial institutions during the Greek sovereign debt crisis

This article employs the asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) model to assess impacts of the recent sovereign debt crisis on the time-varying correlations of five European financial institutions holding large amounts of Greek sovereign bonds (National Bank of Greece, BNP Paribas, Dexia, Generali, and Commerzbank). Contrary to the results of preceding studies, we find significant increases in the correlations between several combinations of the financial institutions’ stock returns after the inception of the sovereign debt crisis, indicating contagion effects. Moreover, our findings show that the parameter of the standardized negative residuals is statistically significant in the case of DCC estimates between two specific institutions. This suggests that the conditional correlation of stock returns between the two institutions is more significantly influenced by negative shocks than by positive innovations to return.