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Special repo rates and the cross-section of bond prices: the role of the special collateral risk premium. (English) Zbl 1497.91317

Summary: We price the risky component of specialness spreads – identified by their deviations from the expected auction cycle – within a dynamic term structure model estimated using daily prices of all outstanding Treasury securities and corresponding special collateral (SC) repo rates. This allows us to derive a time-varying SC risk premium that we quantitatively link to various price anomalies, such as the on-the-run premium. The SC risk premium explains about 80% of the on-the-run premium and a substantial share of other Treasury price anomalies, suggesting that unexpected fluctuations in the specialness spreads of recently issued nominal Treasury securities are a common risk factor.

MSC:

91G30 Interest rates, asset pricing, etc. (stochastic models)