Convergence of the Government Bond Yields in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

The aim of this paper is to analyse the influence of the European Union accession and financial crisis to convergence and integration of the bond yields and bond markets. The results show the deepening of bond market convergence after the European Union accession and the integration has continued until the end of the observed period. The chosen indicators are monthly mid-term bond yields (10-year bond yields). The period of 1/2000 to 12/2017 was chosen in order to show the impacts of the changes. The time period was divided into periods 1/2000 - 4/2004 (before the European Union accession), 5/2004 - 7/2007 (after the accession and before financial crisis), 8/2007 - 3/2009 (period of the deepest financial crisis), 4/2009 - 12/2016 (period after the financial crisis). Used methods are 1) spread between the 10-year bond yields of countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and German 10-year bond yield, 2) analysis of alignment, 3) beta-convergence. These findings can be beneficial for the financial market observers.