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The paper‐bill spread and real output: what matters more, a change in the paper rate or a change in the bill rate?
Author(s) -
Ewing Bradley T,
Lynch Gerald J,
Payne James E
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
review of financial economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.347
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1873-5924
pISSN - 1058-3300
DOI - 10.1016/s1058-3300(03)00024-7
Subject(s) - treasury , economics , econometrics , impulse response , variance (accounting) , financial economics , monetary economics , accounting , mathematics , law , political science , mathematical analysis
Abstract This paper adds to the literature on the information content of the paper‐bill spread by explicitly taking into account the two sources of wider spreads, rises in the paper rate and declines in the bill rate. Results from impulse response analysis and variance decompositions suggest that decreases in real output are greater and last longer when a widening of the paper‐bill spread comes from an increase in the paper rate rather than from an equivalent decrease in the bill rate. This is consistent with the idea that changes in the commercial paper rate have greater information content about future business cycles than do changes in the Treasury bill rate.