Professor Bo Becker will present the paper “The Resilience of the U.S. Corporate Bond Market During Financial Crises”.

Asbtract:
Corporate bond markets proved remarkably resilient in the face of a sharp contraction caused the 2020 Covid-19 epidemic. We document three important facts: bond issuance increased immediately when the contraction hit; in contrast, syndicated loan issuance was low; Federal Reserve interventions increased bond issuance, loan issuance also increased, but less; bond issuance was concentrated in the investment grade segment, for large and profitable issuers. We compare those findings to previous crises and recessions and document similar patterns. The U.S. bond market is an important and resilient source of funding for corporations