Flight from Liquidity and Corporate Bond Yields

Abstract

This paper documents that in distress periods, liquidity constrained investors sell liquid corporate bonds and hold onto illiquid ones, a phenomenon which we refer to as flight from liquidity. Performing within issuer-time analysis to properly control for credit risk, we find that flight from liquidity results in a decline in the liquidity premium. In other words, liquid bonds that are significantly more expensive in normal market conditions, lose more value in distress periods and trade at a closer, and sometimes at an indistinguishable, yield spread to their illiquid peers from the same issuer. We also find that these shocks to the liquidity premium are short-lived and do not have a long-lasting pricing impact. We provide suggestive evidence that the liquidity clientele effect derives these results. Our findings suggest that investment exposure to liquid bonds entails a unique risk arising during periods of distress.