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The article reports on the impact of the European sovereign debt crisis on the U.S. corporate bond market from 2009 to 2011. It shows that interest rates on U.S. corporate bonds have been affected by corporate bond market shocks originating in Europe. It estimates contagion coefficients of around 0.44 to 0.85, which means that a one percentage point increase in European corporate bond spreads translated on average to a 0.44 to 0.85 percentage point increase in corporate bond spreads in the U.S.

The article presents a study on the economic data of the Corporate Bond Credit in the U.S. According to the author, movements in the corporate bond spreads are important to many investors and potentially informative forward-looking metrics of market sentiment. The studies reviewed show that more than half of the variation in corporate bond credit spreads is not related to the financial health of the issuing firm, but rather reflects effects such as compensation for liquidity risk.