We develop and test a model in which swap spreads are determined by end users’ demand for and constrained intermediaries’ supply of long-term interest rate swaps. Swap spreads reflect compensation both for using scarce intermediary capital and for bearing convergence risk—i.e., the risk...

We test the role of funding-constrained investors across developed financial markets. We compile direct measures of the severity of funding frictions, or illiquidity, from deviations of government bond yields from a fitted yield curve. Using these illiquidity measures, we first show that higher...