Could the European Central Bank's quantitative easing lead to a bond bubble bursting ?

Abstract

On January 22, 2015, the European Central Bank officially launched its first quantitative easing programme. By embarking on such a large-scale asset purchase programme, the European Central Bank committed itself to buy €60 billion of sovereign bonds per month for at least two years. However, today the nature of the bond market has largely changed. Yields have achieved historical low levels and valuations have taken off. Moreover, the amount injected into the market and the new role played by the ECB might have had side effects on the bond market. Many economists look even further and wonder whether the European Central Bank will be able to prevent the bubble from bursting. This master thesis hypotheses that quantitative easing created a bubble on the bond market, and aims therefore at verifying the impacts provoked by quantitative easing on this market.