Monetary Integration and the Cost of Borrowing

Abstract

With the beginning of the European Monetary Union (EMU), euro-area sovereign securities adjusted spreads over Germany (corrected from the foreign exchange risk) experienced an increase that caused a lower than expected decline in borrowing costs. The objective of this paper is to study what explains that rising. In particular, if it took place a change in the price assigned by markets to domestic (credit risk and/or market liquidity) or to international risk factors. The empirical evidence supports the idea that a change in the market value of liquidity occurred with the EMU. International and default risk play a smaller role.sovereign securities markets, monetary integration, market liquidity, international and domestic credit risk