This section provides an assessment of the impact of the CBPP on the yields of CB. The reaction of most European CB markets to the announcement of the CBPP was noticeable, and appears to have initiated a declining trend in CB yield spreads. The comparison of CB yields with a risk-free benchmark shows that German CB spreads even declined below zero for a time, but now stand at around the levels observed in late2007. French CB spreads seem to have stabilised at the level of approximately 30-50 basis points higher than their pre-Lehman values, while spreads in other countries signifi cantly widened again during the recent sovereign debt crisis. A regression analysis, controlling for the overall developments in the CB markets, shows that the CBPP resulted in an average spread tightening by about 12 basis points at the euro area level, although this effect differed signifi cantly across countries. Overall, the results suggest that the CBPP had a noticeable impact on euro area CB secondary markets. While the German CB market had already started recovering by early 2009, the announcement of the CBPP seems to have been an important stimulus to the recovery of other CB markets.