Is there a risk-return tradeoff in the corporate bond market? Time-series and cross-sectional evidence

Jennie Bai, Turan G. Bali and Quan Wen

Journal of Financial Economics, 2021, vol. 142, issue 3, 1017-1037

Abstract: We provide time-series and cross-sectional evidence on the significance of a risk-return tradeoff in the bond and equity markets. We find a significantly positive intertemporal relation between expected return and risk in the bond market. We also propose novel measures of systematic and idiosyncratic risk for individual corporate bonds and find a significantly positive cross-sectional relation between systematic risk and expected bond returns, whereas there is no significant link between idiosyncratic risk and future bond returns. We provide an explanation for the significance of systematic (idiosyncratic) risk based on different investor preferences and informational frictions in the bond (equity) market.

Keywords: Corporate bonds; Systematic risk; Idiosyncratic volatility; Risk-return tradeoff (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 G10 G11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:142:y:2021:i:3:p:1017-1037

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.05.003

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