Online Seminar – The resilience of the U.S. corporate bond market during financial crises

Bo Becker, Professor of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics

Corporate bond markets proved remarkably resilient in the face of a sharp contraction caused by the 2020 COVID-19 (coronavirus) 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.

Speaker bio

Bo Becker is the Cevian Capital Professor of Finance in the Department of Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics. The department of finance is housed in the Swedish House of Finance. Professor Becker’s research is on corporate finance, especially corporate credit markets. Recent topics include corporate bank lending through the business cycle, conflicts of interest in credit ratings industry, the covenant structure of loans and bonds, and comparing out-of-court restructuring to bankruptcy. His research has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies and other journals. Professor Becker has been awarded several prizes and grants, including the Standard Life Prize for best paper in the ECGI Finance WP series, the Nordea Price for Best Corporate Finance Paper at the European Finance Association’s annual meeting and the Lamfalussy Research Fellowship from the European Central Bank.

Professor Becker holds a masters degree from the Stockholm School of Economics and a PhD from the University of Chicago. He previously worked at the University of Illinois and at Harvard Business School. Professor Becker has served as an associate editor of the Review of Financial Studies, Management Science and Financial Management, is a Research Fellow of Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). He has served on the board of directors of the Swedish National Debt Office, as a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and as an expert for the inquiry into possible Swedish membership of the EU Banking Union. He serves as a member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board as well as on several non-for profit and corporate boards, including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

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