Most tests of preferred habitat theory are indirect; they infer the existence of preferred habitat behaviour in financial markets by examining the behaviour of asset prices. We instead identify preferred habitat behaviour directly from whether investors show a preference towards a particular...

This paper uses a unique security-level data set to demonstrate that foreign institutional investors shift their U.S. corporate bond portfolios toward bonds with higher credit spreads when U.S. monetary policy tightens, which reflects institutional factors related to nominal return targets and...

Using data on institutional investors' bond holdings, we investigate the resilience of green bonds to the COVID-19 shock in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that during the COVID outbreak green bonds experience lower sales, on average, while in normal times no significant...

We examine the effect of bond Exchange‐Traded Funds (ETFs) on corporate bond liquidity. Using Propensity Score Matching and Difference‐in‐Differences techniques, we demonstrate that inclusion in ETFs is associated with a 10% reduction in transaction costs for high yield (HY) bonds and 4%...

Previous studies on green bonds (GBs) in China have not extensively analyzed how investor characteristics such as demographic background and environmental concerns affect Chinese investors' decisions to invest in GBs. Therefore, these aspects should be examined to understand the GB market and...

The financial instability stemming from large volumes of simultaneous selling in the corporate bond market has been a topic of concern in recent years. Investors in this market care primarily about the downside risk of a firm given their concave payoff function, and this is precisely the...

Using a comprehensive database of corporate news, we find that bond funds trade against the direction of news sentiment. The trading against news phenomenon is concentrated in funds selling on positive news and in the post-financial crisis period when dealer liquidity provision is constrained....

This paper investigates the sensitivity of the demand for safe government debt to currency unhedged and hedged excess returns in a sample of US mutual funds. We find evidence of active rebalancing towards government bonds that offer relatively higher returns on an unhedged basis, in particular...

Using novel data on investors' bond portfolios, we study the contagion of the crisis from securitized bonds to corporate bonds. When securitized bonds became “toxic” in August 2007, mutual funds retained the now illiquid securitized bonds and sold corporate bonds. Funds with negative flows...

Could institutional investors contribute to the stability of capital markets? The recent 2007- 2008 American subprime mortgage crisis and the 2009 European sovereign debt crisis provided a good example. Although the impact of the two financial crises is still felt across their respective...