EN
This paper explores factors that drive government yield spreads of EU countries’ bonds issued between 2000 and 2012. Using panel regression, it identifies three factors: a country specific factor related to country’s default risk, a common factor related to general risk aversion premium, and a liquidity factor. It compares bond pricing before and after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008, bond pricing of the euro area member states with countries outside of the monetary union and in particular contrasts pricing of these two groups of countries before and after the crisis.