Are Bunds special? This paper estimates the 'Bund premium' as the difference in convenience yields between other sovereign safe assets and German government bonds adjusted for sovereign credit risk, liquidity and swap market frictions. A higher premium suggests less substitutability of sovereign...

Long-term interest rates of small open economies correlate strongly with the US long-term rate. Can central banks in those countries decouple from the US? An estimated DSGE model for the UK (vis-`a-vis the US) establishes three structural empirical results. (1) Comovement arises due to nominal...

Affine term structure models of bond yields are important tools for analyzing fixed income markets and monetary policy. Estimators of Adrian, Crump, and Mönch (2013) and Diez de Los Rios (2015) replace time-consuming nonlinear search procedures with a set of simple linear regressions. However,...

This paper uses a dynamic panel approach to explain the determinants of widening sovereign bond yield spreads vis-à-vis Germany in selected euro area countries during the period end-July 2007 to end-March 2009, when the financial turmoil developed into a full-blown financial and economic...

This paper uses a dynamic panel approach to explain the determinants of widening sovereign bond yield spreads vis-à-vis Germany in selected euro area countries during the period end-July 2007 to end-March 2009, when the financial turmoil developed into a full-blown financial and economic...

We analyse the effectiveness of fiscal policy rules for business cycle stabilisation in a monetary union using a quarterly macro-econometric model of Germany. The simulations compare a deficit target and an expenditure target under a range of supply, demand and fiscal shocks. Their effects are...