Public debt management announcements under "beat-the-market" opportunities

June 22, 2022
Issue 2022-06

Summary

Public debt managers auction bonds to primary dealers (PDs) who may sell them to traders in the secondary market. PDs may have an information advantage about the bond's value. When the resulting adverse selection problem is severe, the result is a separating equilibrium in which the secondary market breaks down whenever the true bond value is high. In a pooling equilibrium, on the other hand, the purchasing offers made by traders allow PDs to extract information rents. These rents give rise to two counteracting effects. First, they create an auction premium which incentivizes the debt manager to over-issue whenever the bond value is low. This is what we call "beat-the-market" opportunities. Data for U.S. Treasury auctions show a positive relationship between the auction premium and the issuance bias. Second, the information rents motivate traders to learn the bond value. This expertise mitigates the auction premium and the issuance bias. Announcing a target debt level commits the debt manager, limits information rent, and crowds out expertise.

Download file now

The file can be downloaded with the button below.

Issue:
06
Pages:
62
JEL classification:
D44, H63, D82, D83
Keywords:
Public debt management, announcements, sovereign debt markets, treasury auctions, state-inconsistent policy
Year:
2022

Additional files

Related content

Author(s)

  • Alexander Dentler

  • Dr. Enzo Rossi

Your settings

Required: These cookies (e.g. for storing your IP address) cannot be rejected as they are necessary to ensure the operation of the website. These data are not evaluated further.
Analytics: If you consent to this category, data such as IP address, location, device information, browser version and site visitor behaviour will be collected. These data are evaluated for the SNB's internal purposes and are kept for two years.
Third-party: If you consent to this category, third-party services (used, for example, to add social multimedia content to the SNB's website) will be activated which collect personal data, process these data, disclose them abroad - worldwide - and place cookies. The relevant data protection regulations are linked in the 'Privacy statement for the website of the Swiss National Bank'.

Choose your preferred settings:

This website uses cookies, analytics tools and other technologies to provide requested features, content and services, to personalise the content shown, to provide links to social media, and to analyse the use of the website in anonymised form for the purposes of improving usability. Personal data are also disclosed abroad - worldwide - to video service providers and the analytics tools of these providers are used. More information is available under 'Manage settings'.