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Working Paper
What Drives the Cross-Section of Credit Spreads?: A Variance Decomposition Approach
I decompose the cross-sectional variation of the credit spreads for corporate bonds into changing expected returns and changing expectation of credit losses with a model-free method. Using a log-linearized pricing identity and a vector autoregression applied to micro-level data from 1973 to 2011, I find that the expected credit loss component and the excess return component each explains about half of the variance of the credit spreads. Unlike the market-level findings in Gilchrist and Zakrajsek (2012), at the firm level, the expected credit loss is volatile and affects the firms' investment ...
The Comovement between Credit Spreads, Corporate Debt and Liquid Assets in Recent Crises
Credit spreads rose sharply during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. But their movement with corporate debt and liquid assets differed during those two periods.
Working Paper
Credit and Liquidity Policies during Large Crises
We compare firms’ financials during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19. While the two crises featured similar increases in credit spreads, debt and liquid assets decreased during the GFC but increased during COVID-19. In the cross-section, leverage was the primary determinant of credit spreads and investment during the GFC, but liquidity was more important during COVID-19. We augment a quantitative model of firm capital structure with a motive to hold liquid assets. The GFC resembled a combination of real and financial shocks, while COVID-19 also featured liquidity shocks. We ...
Working Paper
Credit and Liquidity Policies during Large Crises
We compare firms’ financials during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19. While the two crises featured similar increases in credit spreads, debt and liquid assets decreased during the GFC but increased during COVID-19. In the cross-section, leverage was the primary determinant of credit spreads and investment during the GFC, but liquidity was more important during COVID-19. We augment a quantitative model of firm capital structure with a motive to hold liquid assets. The GFC resembled a combination of real and financial shocks, while COVID-19 also featured liquidity shocks. We ...
Working Paper
Decomposing the Monetary Policy Multiplier
Financial markets play an important role in generating monetary policy transmission asymmetries in the US. Credit spreads only adjust to unexpected increases in interest rates, causing output and prices to respond more to a monetary tightening than to an expansion. At a one year horizon, the ‘financial multiplier’ of monetary policy—defined as the ratio between the cumulative responses of employment and credit spreads—is zero for a monetary expansion, -2 for a monetary tightening, and -4 for a monetary tightening that takes place under strained credit market conditions. These results ...
Working Paper
Firm Financial Conditions and the Transmission of Monetary Policy
We study how the transmission of monetary policy to firms' investment and credit spreads depends on their financial conditions, finding a major role for their excess bond premia (EBPs), the component of credit spreads in excess of default risk. While monetary policy easing shocks compress credit spreads more for firms with higher ex-ante EBPs, it is lower-EBP firms that invest more. We rationalize these findings using a model with financial frictions in which lower-EBP firms have flatter marginal product of capital curves. We also show empirically that the cross-sectional distribution of firm ...
Working Paper
Fintech Lending: Financial Inclusion, Risk Pricing, and Alternative Information
Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. Banks have been concerned about the uneven playing field because fintech lenders are not subject to the same rigorous oversight. There have also been concerns about the use of alternative data sources by fintech lenders and the impact on financial inclusion. In this paper, we explore the advantages/disadvantages of loans made by a large fintech lender and similar loans that were originated through traditional banking channels. Specifically, we use account-level data from the Lending Club and Y-14M bank ...
Credit Spreads during the Financial Crisis and COVID-19
Corporate bond credit spreads widened during both the financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic. How did spreads respond to policy actions?
Speech
The importance of financial conditions in the conduct of monetary policy: remarks at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, Sarasota, Florida
Remarks at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, Sarasota, Florida.
Working Paper
Credit and Liquidity Policies during Large Crises
We compare firms’ financials during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19. While the two crises featured similar increases in credit spreads, debt and liquid assets decreased during the GFC but increased during COVID-19. In the cross-section, leverage was the primary determinant of credit spreads and investment during the GFC, but liquidity was more important during COVID-19. We augment a quantitative model of firm capital structure with a motive to hold liquid assets. The GFC resembled a combination of productivity and financial shocks, while COVID-19 also featured liquidity ...