Fi­nan­ce Se­mi­nar with Alan Moreira

Please join us for a Finance Seminar with Alan Moreira, New York University Stern School of Business.

Alan Moreira will present: Asset Purchase Rules: How QE Transformed the Bond Market

Abstract:
We argue that quantitative easing (QE) and tightening policies constitute a dynamic state-contingent plan instead of a succession of independent interventions. This view changes the main reason QE is effective by adding an insurance channel to the static effect of absorbing bond supply in a given period. QE purchases occur in bad economic states (e.g., 2008-2009 or 2020) when the supply of government debt increases. Increasing long-term bond prices in bad economic states increases their safety, driving up their value and thus lowering ex-ante yields. We estimate that this insurance channel alone lowers long-term bond yields by 75-100 bps. This channel explains the prevalence of low long-term yields, low term premia, and low yield volatility since the introduction of QE, despite the sharp increase in net government debt supply. Consistent with a state-contingent channel, implied volatilities of long-duration risk-free securities fall substantially on QE announcements, even for options with maturities out to 10 years. We calibrate a policy rule for asset purchases to their historical path and include it in a quantitative term structure model. In the model, state-contingent QE offsets term premia fluctuations in long-term bonds. The insurance effect from this channel lowers long-term Treasury yields by 75bps ex-ante, which explains about 65% of the total effect of QE on yields. The calibrated model matches both broad patterns in bond yields and the response to QE announcements.