Essays on corporate bonds

[摘要] (cont.) In the third chapter (co-authored with Jun Pan and Jiang Wang), we examine the liquidity of corporate bonds and its asset-pricing implications. Our measure of illiquidity is based on the magnitude of transitory price movements. Using transaction-level data, we find the illiquidity in corporate bonds to be significant, substantially greater than what can be explained by the bid-ask bounce, and closely related to bond characteristics. We also find a strong commonality in the time variation of bond illiquidity, which rises sharply during market crises. Monthly changes in aggregate bond illiquidity are strongly related to changes in the CBOE VIX index. Finally, we find a relation between our measure of bond illiquidity and the cross-sectional variation in bond yield spreads.

[发布机构] Massachusetts Institute of Technology