The effects of the ECB's public and corporate bond purchases. An event study examining the German financial market in comparison to the G7-group

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1,7, University of St Andrews (School of Management), language: English, abstract: This study quantifies the financial market impact of the ECB's public and corporate bond purchase programs from January 2015 to June 2016. The conducted event study analyses eleven announcement events and their influence on government bonds, corporate bonds, exchange rates and equity markets. The focus lies on the German market, although all other G7 countries are included for reasons of comparison. These are the main findings: Government bond and corporate bond yields fell by 23bp and 32bp respectively over all events; the effect on the euro was negative but weak; and the euro equity markets were positively driven by 680bp. Furthermore, most of the effects occur on the day following the events. Finally, the news impact diminishes over time, causing an observable break between the public and corporate bond purchase program.