A safe asset is of high credit quality, retains its value in bad times, and is traded in liquid markets. We show that bonds issued by the European Union (EU) are widely considered to be of high credit quality, and that their yield spread over German Bunds remained contained during the 2020...

This paper develops a two-country model with asset market segmentation to investigate the effects of quantitative easing implemented by the major central banks on a typical small open economy that follows independent monetary policy. The model is able to replicate the key empirical facts on...

We conduct the most extensive study of underpricing in the euro area bond market so far and find strong evidence of underpricing. In cross-sectional regressions we find patterns that are consistent with bookbuilding-based theories of underpricing and inconsistent with liquidity-based...

This paper investigates the scarcity effects of quantitative easing (QE) policies, drawing on intra-day transaction-level data for German government bonds, purchased under the Public Sector Purchase Program (PSPP) of the ECB/Eurosystem. This paper is the first to match high-frequency QE purchase...

The rise of bond financing in EuropeUsing large panel data of public and private firms, this paper dissects the growth of bond financing in the Euro Area through the lens of the cross-section of issuers. In recent years, the composition of bond issuers has shifted, with the entry of many smaller...