A Financial Stability Fund set by a union of sovereign countries (e.g. the European Stability Mechanism) can improve countries’ ability to share risks, borrow and lend, with respect to the standard instrument: sovereign debt financing. Efficiency gains arise from the ability of the fund to offer long-term contingent financial contracts, subject to limited enforcement and moral hazard constraint...

Using a large data set on credit default swaps, we study how default risk interacts with interest-rate risk and liquidity risk to jointly determine the term structure of credit spreads. We classify the reference companies into two broad industry sectors, two broad credit rating classes, and two liquidity groups. We develop a class of dynamic term structure models that include (i) two benchmark ...

We explore how the underlying informational frictions, or anonymity, that give rise to the existence of monetary exchange affect international exchange rate dynamics. Using a two-country, two-sector model, we show that information friction implies a particular restriction on domestic relative pricing dynamics and hence on international nominal and real exchange rate determination. Furthermore, ...

The term structure of interest rates is often summarized using a handful of yield factors that capture shifts in the shape of the yield curve. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive model for volatility dynamics in the level, slope, and curvature factors that simultaneously includes level and GARCH effects along with regime shifts. We show that the level of the short-rate is useful in modeli...

This paper explores the transmission of credit conditions into the real economy. Specifically, I examine the forecasting power of the term structure of credit spreads for future GDP growth. I find that the whole term structure of credit spreads has predictive power, even though the term structure of Treasury yields has none. Using a parsimonious macro-finance term structure model that captures ...

We study the fitting of the euro yield curve with the Longstaff and Schwartz (1992) (LS) two-factor general equilibrium model and the Schaefer and Schwartz (1984) (SS) two-factor arbitrage model of the term structure of interest rates. The Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985b) (CIR) one-factor model is also studied as a reference. LS use the short-term interest rate and the volatility of the short-t...

The recent sharp increase in fiscal deficits and government debt in many countries raises questions regarding their impact on long-term sovereign bond yields. While economic theory suggests that this impact is likely to be adverse, empirical results have been less clear cut, have generally ignored nonlinear effects of deficits and debt through some other key determinants of yields, and have bee...

We extend the New Keynesian Monetary Policy literature relaxing the assumption that the decisions are taken by a single policymaker, considering instead that monetary policy decisions are taken collectively in a committee. We introduce a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), whose members have different preferences between output and inflation variability and have to vote on the level of the interes...

In this paper we empirically analyze and compare the Libor and Swap Market Models, developed by Brace, Gatarek, and Musiela (1997) and Jamshidian (1997), using paneldata on prices of US caplets and swaptions. A Libor Market Model can directly be calibrated to observed prices of caplets, whereas a Swap Market Model is calibrated to a certain set of swaption prices. For both one-factor and two-fa...

We explore the determinants of yield differentials between long-term sovereign bonds in the Euro area. There is a common trend in yield differentials, which is correlated with a measure of the international risk factor. In contrast, liquidity differentials display sizeable heterogeneity and no common factor. We present a model that predicts that yield differentials should increase in both liqui...