The sovereign yield curve and credit ratings in GIIPS

Author First name, Last name, Institution

Yasir Riaz, Namal Institute
Choudhry T. Shehzad, Lahore University of Management Sciences
Zaghum Umar, Zayed UniversityFollow

ORCID Identifiers

0000-0002-4448-3847

0000-0002-3194-7147

0000-0002-0425-2665

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

International Review of Finance

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Abstract

© 2020 International Review of Finance Ltd. 2020 This paper studies the impact of sovereign credit rating and outlook changes on the shape of the sovereign yield curve using data for five European countries, namely, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, known as the GIIPS for the period of 2001–2016. We use the dynamic Nelson–Siegel model to estimate the level, slope, and curvature of the yield curve. Subsequently, we employ the vector autoregressive model to estimate the effect of sovereign rating and outlook changes on the sovereign yield curve. We find a significant effect of rating downgrades and an insignificant effect of rating upgrades in all five countries; however, the results for the effect of changes in outlook status are mixed. Our results remain robust to various sensitivity tests.

DOI Link

10.1111/irfi.12306

ISSN

1369-412X

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Disciplines

Business

Keywords

credit ratings, dynamic Nelson–Siegel model and state-space model, sovereign bonds, term structure of sovereign yields

Scopus ID

85083667801

Recommended Citation

Riaz, Yasir; Shehzad, Choudhry T.; and Umar, Zaghum, "The sovereign yield curve and credit ratings in GIIPS" (2020). All Works. 3606.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/3606

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no