Exorbitant privilege? Quantitative easing and the bond market subsidy of prospective fallen angels

IF 10.4 1区经济学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Journal of Financial Economics Pub Date : 2025-05-15 DOI:10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104084

Viral V. Acharya , Ryan Banerjee , Matteo Crosignani , Tim Eisert , Renée Spigt

引用次数: 0

Abstract

We document capital misallocation in the U.S. investment-grade (IG) corporate bond market, driven by quantitative easing (QE). Prospective fallen angels — risky firms just above the IG cutoff — enjoyed subsidized bond financing in 2009–19. This effect is driven by Fed purchases of securities inducing long-duration IG-focused investors to rebalance their portfolios towards higher-yielding IG bonds. The benefiting firms (i) exploited the sluggish downward adjustment of credit ratings after M&A to finance risky acquisitions with bond issuances, and (ii) increased market share affecting competitors’ employment and investment, but (iii) suffered severe downgrades at the onset of the pandemic.

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过分的特权吗?量化宽松与债券市场对未来堕落天使的补贴

我们记录了在量化宽松（QE）的推动下，美国投资级（IG）公司债券市场的资本错配。2009 - 2019年，潜在的“堕落天使”——仅高于IG门槛的高风险公司——享受了补贴债券融资。这种效应是由美联储购买证券推动的，这些证券促使关注长期IG债券的投资者重新平衡其投资组合，转向收益率更高的IG债券。受益公司（一）利用并购A后信用评级缓慢下调的机会，通过发行债券为高风险收购融资；（二）增加市场份额，影响竞争对手的就业和投资，但（三）在疫情开始时信用评级遭到严重下调。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Financial Economics Multiple-

CiteScore

15.80

自引率

4.50%

发文量

192

审稿时长

37 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Financial Economics provides a specialized forum for the publication of research in the area of financial economics and the theory of the firm, placing primary emphasis on the highest quality analytical, empirical, and clinical contributions in the following major areas: capital markets, financial institutions, corporate finance, corporate governance, and the economics of organizations.