Current developments in the European corporate bond market

This paper introduces a novel database on the European corporate bond market to analyze the role of transparency regulation and recent developments in bond markets. We use data from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to build a comprehensive database covering daily corporate bond listing information in Europe starting in 2018. We then analyze the different market segments of the European bond market along four key areas: (i) time and cross-sectional trends in bond listings; (ii) composition of firms on the market; (iii) firms’ financial reporting transparency; (iv) bond contract terms. Furthermore, we discuss the impact of recent economic events on these key areas.