Interest rate swaps have become a popular financial derivative, and market watchers and economists are paying closer attention to them and their associated yield curves. This Commentary gives a brief introduction to swaps and their relation to other interest rates.Swaps (Finance) ; Interest rates

Joseph G. Haubrich

English

Research Papers in Economics

think of this is that two bonds are being
swapped—a fixed bond for a floating
bond, and the principal amounts cancel
out.) 
In a similar fashion, to avoid redundant
payments, the two swap counterparties
make only net payments to each other.
On that $1 billion swap of a fixed 
5 percent for a six-month floating rate
currently at 2.5 percent, Megafirm does
not pay $50 million to BigBank while
getting $25 million back from BigBank.
Rather, Megafirm makes the net payment
of $25 million. This netting is one reason
swaps are less risky than bonds. If Big-
Bank fails, Megafirm is happy to be out
of the contract because it owes money to
BigBank. In a swap, you only lose when
the failing party owes you money—so
even if one firm fails, there’s roughly a
50-50 chance no losses will occur. 
Interest rate swaps, in which interest
payments are exchanged, are one kind of
swap, and they come in two general
types—coupon swaps, like the one
above, where a fixed rate is exchanged
for floating, and basis swaps, where two
different floating rates are swapped, such
as a six-month rate for a twelve-month. 
Another basic type of swap is the cur-
rency swap, which exchanges payment
streams in different currencies—say,
dollars for yen. Simple sorts of swaps
are often denoted as “plain vanilla”—
nothing fancy. The more complex sort
are exotics.
December 2001
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Swaps and the Swaps Yield Curve
by Joseph G. Haubrich
ISSN 0428-1276
Interest rate swaps have become a pop-
ular financial derivative, and market
watchers and economists are paying
closer attention to them and their asso-
ciated yield curves. This Commentary
gives a brief introduction to swaps and
their relation to other interest rates.
Anyone who reads the financial pages
soon becomes acquainted with a variety
of interest rates—long rates, short rates,
rates on government bonds, bank
accounts, and corporate bonds. Those
readers may have recently noticed a new
rate getting more attention in the finan-
cial pages: swap rates. As the interest
rate paid on an increasingly common
financial derivative—the interest rate
swap—these rates deserve attention in
their own right. Spreads between swap
rates and Treasury bonds are becoming a
closely watched indicator of the market’s
view of macroeconomic risk. Further-
more, some analysts view swaps as the
most likely replacement for Treasury
bonds as a financial benchmark, should
budget surpluses dry up the government
bond market. They have already
become the standard for pricing many
corporate bonds.
Swap rates, like bond and mortgage
rates, can provide information about 
current and future economic conditions.
But swaps are not bonds or mortgages,
so their interest rate measures something
a bit different than the rates on those
instruments. Extracting information
about the economy from swap rates
requires understanding the differences
between them and other types of interest
rates. This Economic Commentary
describes the swaps market, explores 
the differences between swaps and other
interest rates, and attempts to illustrate
some of the information swap rates can
provide.
■ Swaps—An Overview
Unlike derivatives such as CATS,
DOGS or Quantoes, the name “swap”
actually describes the instrument.1 In a
swap, the two parties exchange, or swap,
payment streams. For example, suppose
one firm has invested in a bond that pays
a coupon of 5 percent each year, and
another firm has invested in a bond that
pays an adjustable, or floating rate each
year. The two firms can enter a swap
agreement and pay each other their inter-
est streams. The firm paying the fixed
rate (or “fixed leg”) is called the buyer
and is said to be “long the swap.” That
paying the floating rate is called the
seller and is “short the swap,” though
these terms are really just a market 
convention.
Just why firms enter swaps agreements 
is an open question. Swaps have grown
exponentially since their introduction, 
so firms must perceive some value to
them. Researchers suggest several possi-
bilities.2 Swaps may help firms protect
their cash flow from frequent changes in
interest rates on bank credit. They may
reduce a firm’s overall financing costs,
either by giving the firm the flexibility 
to adjust the terms of its existing debt—
maturities, cost, or whether it’s fixed or
adjustable—or by enabling firms to
effectively obtain lower credit-risk pre-
miums from each other than they can
from banks or by selling equity.
There are different kinds of swaps, but
they have several common features.
First, the swap payments are all based 
on what is called the notional amount.
An annual coupon of 5 percent on a
notional amount of $1 billion would
mean a payment of $50 million each
year. Swaps are often measured by their
notional value, and it is common to see
corporations reporting numbers such as 
“$2 billion notional value” or even
reports saying things like “the total
swaps market has become enormous,
with notionals exceeding $3 trillion.”
Notionals are like the principal on a
bond, with the extremely important dif-
ference that the notional amount never
gets exchanged. Because the notional
amount is not at risk—unlike a bond—a 
$1 billion swap has less credit risk than 
a $1 billion bond or loan. (One way to■ The Importance of LIBOR
The floating rate used most often in the
swaps market to reference a swap rate to
is LIBOR, or the London interbank
offered rate. This means swaps can be
thought of as derivatives on the LIBOR
rate. LIBOR has some special character-
istics, and it therefore imparts a special
character to swaps and interest rates
based on it. 
First, LIBOR is an unsecured rate. It is
the rate at which major international
banks can borrow unsecured funds from
each other, that is, without posting col-
lateral. As such, it is similar to the fed-
eral funds rate, the rate at which banks
in the United States borrow funds from
each other. Second, LIBOR is a stan-
dardized rate. It is set by the British
Banker’s Association, which produces
the actual reference rate itself each busi-
ness day at noon. The association sur-
veys a panel of banks at 11:00 a.m.
about the interest rate each bank would
pay if it borrowed funds right then. 3
The highest and lowest 25 percent of the
responses are thrown out, and the mean
of the remaining middle half is the
LIBOR “fix” for that day. LIBOR is 
calculated for several currencies—the
most popular being for the U.S. dollar,
and LIBOR without a qualification
means the U.S. dollar rate. So the US$
LIBOR gives the interest rate for bor-
rowing Eurodollars, dollar deposits held
in banks outside the United States. 
LIBOR rates are short term—the matu-
rities are one week and one, two, three,
six, nine, and twelve months. If we plot
a yield curve for LIBOR, that is, a graph
of yields (such as interest rates) against
maturity, and compare it to the more
familiar Treasury yield curve, we see the
LIBOR curve is richer at the short end,
because only a few Treasury securities
have an original maturity of one year or
less. The LIBOR curve, of course, does
not extend nearly as far as the Treasury
curve, which goes out to 30 years. Fig-
ure 1 compares the LIBOR yield curve
with the U.S. Treasury yield curve for
October 26, 2001. Since the banks
behind the LIBOR rate are not as safe as
the U.S. government, the riskier LIBOR
curve is everywhere above the Treasury
curve. Still, the LIBOR rates have
become such a standard that the Finan-
cial Accounting Standards Board has
accorded LIBOR special status as an
acceptable benchmark, which in turn
makes swaps based on it more attractive.
■ The Interest Rate Swaps 
Market
Interest rate swaps, unlike stocks,
futures, or options, but like most bonds,
are traded “over the counter,” that is, not
on an organized exchange. There is no
set location where trade takes place and
no clearinghouse to ensure the swap con-
tracts are honored. This means firms
need to be aware of who they are dealing
with, but it also allows customized varia-
tions, both in terms of the amounts
involved, the maturity, and in the interest
rates chosen. It is not uncommon for the
floating rate to be some amount above
the index, say LIBOR plus 5 percent.
Other variations extend far beyond the
“plain vanilla” versions described above.
Indeed, the many exotic flavors provide
one measure of the swap market’s suc-
cess. For example, a collapsible swap
gives a firm the option to cancel the
swap if interest rates turn against it—as
long as the floating rate is below the
fixed rate, the firm gets the net payment,
but if rates rise, the swap is cancelled
and the firm pays nothing. Quanto swaps
let firms get a floating payment in
another currency—the firm may pay the
fixed rate in dollars but get the floating
rate in yen. A swaption is an option to
enter into a swap. That is, the buyer of a
swaption has the right, but not the oblig-
ation to enter into a swap before the
option expires.
Because it is an over-the-counter market,
some swap counterparties may get
together on their own, but many use
swap facilitators, who may be either bro-
kers or dealers. The brokers bring people
together, while dealers may trade and
enter swaps for their own account. Often
dealers are large banks, which use their
extensive experience in lending and pay-
ments to work both sides of the market.
This adds some needed anonymity to the
market. For example, Ford and GM may
both want to enter into an interest rate
swap, but they might be reluctant to
reveal that information to their rival—
but a bank might act as go-between, say,
by doing one swap with Ford, paying
fixed and getting floating, and by doing
another swap with GM, getting fixed and
paying floating. 
Despite, or perhaps because of the over-
the-counter nature of the market, the
interest rate swaps market has grown:
Since the first interest rate swap in 
1981, total outstanding swaps reached
$682 billion in notional value in 1987,
$6.2 trillion in 1993, $22.3 trillion in late
1997,4 and, by one measure, $46 trillion
at the end of 1999.5 This compares with
total U.S. government debt outstanding
of $5.7 trillion in June 2001 (of course,
this figure is a nominal, not a notional
amount.)6
■ Yield Curves
The large volume of swaps outstanding
has made yields on swaps of various
maturities (“tenor,” in market parlance)
readily available, allowing us to plot a
yield curve for the swap rate. The “swap
rate” curve shows the fixed-rate leg of a
plain vanilla swap against the floating
leg of a six-month LIBOR. 
The swap rate curve has become popular
as a benchmark, and one reason is the
dual nature of the risk involved. As dis-
cussed above, interest rate swaps are
close to riskless—the “general swap
rate” is only for highly rated counterpar-
ties, there is no principal to default on,
and counterparties lose money only if
they are a net receiver when the other
partner defaults. In addition, many swap
agreements require collateral—putting
up bonds or other securities that the
other side may take in case of default.7
On the other hand, the swap is based on
LIBOR, which is a risky rate. This 
combination means that although swaps
themselves are not risky, they are tied to
a risky rate, and therefore they make a
nice asset to hedge other risky assets. In
fact, this rather amphibious duality of
safety and hedging ability has led regu-
lators to give swaps a special status in
portfolio accounting.8
The usefulness of swaps as a hedge
became particularly apparent in 1998,
during the Russian default and the Long
Term Capital Management debacle,
when spreads between risky bonds and
safe Treasury securities increased dra-
matically. This hurt firms that had
hedged their portfolios of corporate
bonds and mortgage-backed securities
using short positions in Treasury bonds;
as the value of the risky bonds fell, and
since the value of the Treasuries
increased, the value of the short position
fell as well. So rather than offsetting or
mitigating the loss, the so-called hedge
position in Treasuries increased losses,
just the opposite of what a hedge should
do. Swaps looked more like risky bonds,
then, so a short position (paying float-
ing) was a better hedge.9
Another advantage, though, is that,
extreme incidents aside, the swaps
curve behaves somewhat similarly to
the Treasury yield curve. Figure 2
shows that over the past several years,
the curves have moved together. The
biggest difference is that the term 
spread for swaps (that is, the difference
between rates on the longer maturity
and the shorter maturity) did not
invert—that is, go negative as short ratesexceeded long rates—in the second half
of 2000. While special factors (such as
a riskier market) might explain the fail-
ure to invert, some people suspect a
deeper reason: that risky yield spreads,
more closely tied to firm behavior,
invert less often. In an inverted market,
private firms will issue a lot of longer-
term debt in place of short-term debt,
and the resultant supply will drive the
yield curve slope upward again. 
Even so, differences between the Trea-
sury and the swaps yield curves can be
very important. Yield curve inversions
are often taken as a signal of recessions
in the near future.10 If the swaps curve
rarely inverts, that signal may be miss-
ing. On the other hand, perhaps a new
signal arises when there is a big spread
between swap rates and Treasury rates. 
FIGURE 1 LIBOR AND TREASURY YIELDS, OCTOBER 26, 2001
FIGURE 2 TERM SPREADS FOR TREASURY AND SWAPS MARKETS
SOURCE: Bloomberg Financial Services.
■ Conclusion
Judged either by the volume outstand-
ing, the special status accorded by regu-
lators, or the intense scrutiny of practi-
tioner and academic alike, interest rate
swaps and their associated yield curve
occupy a key, if not yet central place in
financial markets. The attractions of
swaps that have fueled their growth,
however, have also caused the swaps
market to differ significantly from the
markets for Treasury or corporate bonds,
and some of the differences are reflected
in the respective yield curves. Swaps are
not bonds, but derivatives on an stan-
dardized interest rate (LIBOR). Though
having very little credit risk of their own,
they are based on an interest rate that
does reflect credit risk. 
These differences account for much of
the popularity of swaps, but they also
mean that swap rates will differ in subtle
but important ways from other interest
rates. Some time-honored relation-
ships—such as the tendency for the yield
curve to invert before recessions—may
not hold when the yield curve in ques-
tion measures swap rates. Thus, a clear
view of the similarities and differences
of this market is essential for nearly
everyone concerned with financial mar-
kets.
■ Footnotes
1. CATS are certificates of accrual on
Treasury securities, an early attempt to
separate the stream of interest rate pay-
ments on government bonds from the
principal. DOGS are dibs on government
securities, another attempt. 
Quantoes will be explained below.
2. For a good discussion of this and
related issues, see Anatoli Kuprianov,
“The Role of Interest Rate Swaps in
Corporate Finance,” Federal Reserve
Bank of Richmond, Economic
Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 3 (Summer
1994), pp. 49–68.
3. For the U.S. dollar, the 16 current 
(as of January 2, 2002) panel members
are: Abbey National PLC, the Bank of
Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., Bank of 
America NT & SA, Barclays Bank 
PLC, Citibank AG, Credit Suisse First
Boston, Deutsche Bank AG, Fuji Bank,
HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Lloyds TSB
Bank PLC, the Norinchukin Bank,
Rabobank, the Royal Bank of Scotland
Group, UBS AG, Westdeutsche Landes-
bank AG. For more details, see
<www.bba.org.uk>.
4. These numbers are from the Interna-
tional Swaps and Derivatives Associa-
tion, “Summary of OTC Derivative 
Market Data,” <www.isda.org/statistics/
qtcderiv.html>.
2.10
2.15
2.20
2.25
2.30
2.35
2.40
2.45
0 2468 1 0 12 14
Maturity
LIBOR Treasury
Percent
–1
–0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3/15/00 6/23/00 10/1/00 1/9/01 4/19/01 7/28/01 11/5/01 2/13/02
Treasury spread
Swap spread
Percent
SOURCE:   Bloomberg Financial Services.5. Charles Smithson, “Swaps Become
the Benchmark,” Risk, April 2001, 
pp. 78–79.
6. Federal Reserve Bulletin, September
2001, p. A27, table 1.40.
7. Some swaps also have market-to-
market provisions for additional safety.
For more information on this and a
sophisticated view of what determines
swap yields, consult Pierre Collin-
Dufresne and Bruno Solnik, “On the
Term Structure of Default Premia in the
Swap and LIBOR Markets,” Journal of
Finance, vol. 56, no. 3 (June 2001), 
pp. 1095–1115.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Research Department
P.O. Box 6387
Cleveland, OH 44101
Return Service Requested:
Please send corrected mailing label to
the above address.
Material may be reprinted if the source is
credited. Please send copies of reprinted
material to the editor.
Joseph G. Haubrich is an economic consul-
tant and economist at the Federal Reserve
Bank of Cleveland.
The views expressed here are those of the
author and not necessarily those of the Federal
Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the Board of 
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or
its staff. 
Economic Commentary is published by the
Research Department of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Cleveland. To receive copies or to be
placed on the mailing list, e-mail your request
to 4d.subscriptions@clev.frb.org or fax it to
216-579-3050. Economic Commentary is also
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World Wide Web: www.clev.frb.org/research,
where glossaries of terms are provided.
We invite comments, questions, and sugges-
tions. E-mail us at editor@clev.frb.org.
PRSRT STD
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Cleveland, OH
Permit No. 385
8. See Andrew Osterland, “Good Morn-
ing Volatility,” CFO Magazine, July 1,
2000.
9. See Robert N. McCauley, “Bench-
mark Tipping in the Money and Bond
Markets,” BIS Quarterly Review, March
2001, pp. 39–59.
10. My favorite reference for this is
Joseph G. Haubrich and Ann M. Dom-
brosky, “Predicting Real Growth Using
the Yield Curve,” Federal Reserve Bank
of Cleveland, Economic Review, vol. 32,
no. 1 (Quarter 1, 1996), pp. 26–35. For
more on why the swaps curve is gener-
ally steeper, see John Youngdahl, Brad
Stone, and Hayley Boesky, “Implica-
tions of a Disappearing Treasury Debt
Market,” Journal of Fixed Income,
March 2001, pp. 75–86.

Swaps and the swaps yield curve

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