Disappearing government bond spreads in the eurozone - Back to normal? CEPS Working Document No. 396, May 2014

De Grauwe, Paul and Ji, Yuemei (2014) Disappearing government bond spreads in the eurozone - Back to normal? CEPS Working Document No. 396, May 2014. [Working Paper]

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Abstract

Since the announcement of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme by Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, in 2012, the government bond spreads began a strong decline. This paper finds that most of this decline is due to the positive market sentiments that the OMT programme has triggered and is not related to underlying fundamentals, such as the debt-to-GDP ratios or the external debt position that have continued to increase in most countries. The authors even argue that the market’s euphoria may have gone too far in taking into account the same market fundamentals. They conclude with some thoughts about the future governance of the OMT programme.

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