This study examines the impact of the 2007–08 global financial crisis on issuance activity and yield spreads in the Regulation S private debt market. We explore the implications of the flight-to-quality effect by comparing two types of Regulation S issues subject to different jurisdictions and territorial boundaries - standalone Regulation S issuance and combined Regulation S and Rule 144A issues. Our results suggest that flight-to-quality is the main effect during the crisis; this effect partially reversed after the crisis. We find that debt issuance declined by more than 70% during the crisis, and the yield spreads jumped by 50 basis points relative to the pre-crisis period. This effect is more pronounced for the combined Regulation S and Rule 144A issues that comprise mostly speculative-grade issues. After the crisis, the number of Regulation S debt issues more than doubled, but the average credit rating declined. We also find the yield spread difference between the standalone and combined issuance shrank after the crisis. Our evidence supports market segmentation between the two types of issuances due to substantial differences in geographical jurisdictions, investor base, and credit quality.

这项研究考察了2007-08年全球金融危机对S规例私人债务市场中发行活动和收益率利差的影响。我们通过比较受不同管辖权和领土边界约束的两种类型的S规例发行-独立的S规发行以及S规和144A规合并发行，探索了质量逃逸效应的含义。我们的结果表明，质量危机是危机期间的主要影响。危机后，这种影响被部分扭转。我们发现，在危机期间，债务发行量下降了70％以上，收益率息差相对于危机前时期跃升了50个基点。对于法规S和规则144A合并的问题（主要包含投机级问题），这种影响更为明显。危机过后 S法规发行的债券数量增加了一倍以上，但平均信用评级却下降了。我们还发现，危机之后，独立发行和联合发行之间的收益率差有所缩小。由于地理区域，投资者基础和信贷质量的巨大差异，我们的证据支持两种类型的发行之间的市场细分。