Zorka Simon
Assistant professor at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE
Research Interests
Empirical Finance, Fixed Income Securities, Funding Markets, Effect of Regulation
Contact Information
Address: Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE
House of Finance at Goethe University
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 3
60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Email: simon[at]safe-frankfurt.de
Phone: +49 69 798 33704
Working papers
"Market Impact of Government Communication: The Case of Presidential Tweets" with Farshid Abdi, Emily Kormanyos, Loriana Pelizzon and Mila Getmansky Sherman
SAFE Working Paper No. 314
We propose the “President reacts to news” channel of stock returns by studying the financial market impact of the Twitter account of the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. We use machine learning algorithms to classify topic and textual sentiment of 1,400 economy-related tweets to investigate whether they contain relevant information for financial markets. Analyzing high-frequency data, we find that after controlling for past market movements, most tweets are reactive and predictable, rather than novel and informative. The exceptions are tweet topics where the president has direct policy authority and his negative sentiment could adversely affect economic outcomes.
“Collateral Eligibility of Corporate Debt in the Eurosystem” with Loriana Pelizzon, Max Riedel and Marti Subrahmanyam, Revise and resubmit at the Journal of Financial Economics
SAFE Working Paper No. 275
We study the plethora of implications of the Eurosystem collateral framework for corporate bonds. Using data on the evolving collateral eligibility list, we identify the first inclusion date of bonds and issuers. We find that increased supply and demand for pledgeable collateral following eligibility (a) increases activity in the securities lending market, (b) lowers eligible bonds yields, and (c) reduces the liquidity of newly issued bonds, whereas that of older bonds remains unaffected. Thus, corporate bond lending relaxes the constraint of limited collateral supply, thereby improving market cohesion and completeness.
“The Pricing Implications of Oligopolistic Securities Lending Market: A Beneficial Owner Perspective”, with Zsuzsa Réka Huszár, submitted
SAFE Working Paper No. 215
Following the Great Recession, increased regulatory efforts, quantitative easing, and flights-to-safety gave rise to a high-quality, liquid assets shortage and low interest rates in Europe. In this setting, we study the functioning of the securities lending market for the prime European benchmark securities, German Treasuries, and report evidence of agent-lenders’ oligopolistic pricing behavior and under-representation of lenders’ interests. These inefficiencies are most evident in the long maturity segment, where most lenders are wealth preservation agents, pension funds and life insurers, whose inability to capitalize on lending income has non-negligible negative welfare consequences for the average European citizen.
“Much ado about nothing: A study of differential pricing and liquidity of short and long term bonds”, with Joost Driessen and Theo Nijman, Revise and resubmit at the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance
SAFE Working Paper No. 238
Are yields of long-maturity bonds distorted by demand pressure of clientele investors, regulatory effects, or default, flight-to-safety or liquidity premiums? Using data on German nominal bonds between 2005 and 2015, we study the differential pricing and liquidity of short and long maturity bonds. We find statistically significant, but economically negligible segmentation in yields and some degree of liquidity segmentation of short-term versus long-term bonds. These results have important policy implications for the €3.5 trillion European pension and insurance industries: long maturity bond yields might be appropriate for the valuation of long-term liabilities.
“The missing piece of the puzzle: Liquidity premiums in inflation‐indexed markets”, with Joost Driessen and Theo Nijman
Netspar Discussion Paper No. 02/2014-066 and SAFE Working Paper No. 183
Fleckenstein et al. (2014) document that nominal Treasuries trade at higher prices than inflation-swapped indexed bonds, which exactly replicate the nominal cash flows. We study whether this mispricing arises from liquidity premiums in inflation-indexed bonds (TIPS) and inflation swaps. Using US data, we show that the level of liquidity affects TIPS, whereas swap yields include a liquidity risk premium. We also allow for liquidity effects in nominal bonds. These results are based on a model with a systematic liquidity risk factor and asset-specific liquidity characteristics. We show that these liquidity (risk) premiums explain a substantial part of the TIPS underpricing.
“Not risk free: The relative pricing of euro area inflation-indexed and nominal bonds”
Netspar Discussion Paper No. 11/2015-074
Selective default is an event in which a sovereign issuer chooses not to meet obligations on a class of bonds, while servicing her other debt. This paper presents unique empirical evidence of selective default risk premium in inflation-linked sovereign bond (ILB) yields of Germany, France and Italy. I identify this effect from the difference of breakeven rates from country pairs. Differencing controls for common components, such as the effect of inflation expectations, monetary policy or interest rate risk. I find that the remaining part in breakeven rates is explained by two systematic risk factors, liquidity and sovereign credit risks - both within and across countries. I link these findings to the ILB-nominal puzzle, which shows that ILBs are underpriced relative to nominal bonds of the same issuer. I show that this underpricing is due to relative risk premia differences between nominal and inflation-linked debt: ILBs are less liquid, moreover investors perceive them to have higher credit risk during the financial and euro crises. This implies an implicit seniority and a subsequent convenience yield in nominal bonds.
Work in progress
“A better estimate of the greenium”, with Stephan Jank
“Shorting green bonds”, with Konrad Lucke and Loriana Pelizzon
“Auction premium and secondary market liquidity of Italian sovereign bonds during the Covid-19 pandemic”, with Paola Paiardini and Christian Westheide
“Pricing nominal and inflation-indexed government bonds in the Euro Area”, with Matteo Bagnara
“A primer in fixed income lending: A comparison to equity lending, opportunities and challenges”, with Zsuzsa Réka Huszár
Fellowships and memberships
2012- Netspar Research Fellow
2013- AFA, EFA, WFA, FMA