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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 150 No. 3 2023

Intermediary balance sheets and the treasury yield curve

Wenxin Du1; Benjamin Hébert2; Wenhao Li3

1 Center for Economic and Policy Research · 2 Stanford University · 3 University of Southern California

Abstract

We document a regime change in the Treasury market post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC): dealers switched from net short to net long Treasury bonds. We construct “net-long” and “net-short” curves that account for balance sheet and financing costs, and show that actual yields moved from the net short curve pre-GFC to the net long curve post-GFC. Our theory shows the regime shift caused negative swap spreads and co-movement among swap spreads, dealer positions, and covered-interest-parity violations. Furthermore, the effects of various monetary and regulatory policies are regime-dependent. We highlight Treasury supply as a plausible driver of this regime shift.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2023.103722
Volume
150
Issue
3
Pages
103722
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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