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Credit Spread Changes and Monetary Policy Surprises: The Evidence from the Fed Funds Futures Market
Author(s) -
Zhu Xiaoneng
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of futures markets
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.88
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1096-9934
pISSN - 0270-7314
DOI - 10.1002/fut.21544
Subject(s) - surprise , federal funds , monetary economics , monetary policy , economics , recession , futures contract , boom , shock (circulatory) , interest rate , financial economics , keynesian economics , medicine , psychology , social psychology , environmental engineering , engineering
This study analyzes the impact of monetary policy actions on credit spreads of various rating categories and maturities, using federal funds futures to distinguish between anticipated and unanticipated changes in the federal funds rate. Two proxies for monetary policy shocks are the surprise change to the current federal funds target rate (target surprise) and the shock to the future path of policy (path surprise). Although credit spreads consistently respond to the target surprises, they rarely respond to the path surprises after controlling for the effect of the target surprises. The way that credit spreads respond to the target surprises changes across the maturities of corporate bonds. In addition, the empirical analysis indicates that the effect of the target surprises on credit spreads is more significant in economic recessions than in economic booms. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 33:103–128, 2013