Risk Premiums in Dynamic Term Structure Models with Unspanned Macro Risks

Risk Premiums in Dynamic Term Structure Models with Unspanned Macro Risks
Author: Scott Joslin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

This paper quantifies how variation in real economic activity and inflation in the U.S. influenced the market prices of level, slope, and curvature risks in U.S. Treasury markets. We develop a novel arbitrage-free dynamic term structure model in which bond investment decisions are influenced by real output and inflation risks that are unspanned by (imperfectly correlated with) information about the shape of the Treasury yield curve. Our model reveals that, over the period 1985-2007, these unspanned macro risks accounted for a large portion of the variation in forward terms premiums, and there was pronounced cyclical variation in the market prices of level and slope risks. We compare fitted term premiums for the post-2007 crisis period to those from a model with spanned macro risks, and use our findings to reassess some of Chairman Bernanke's remarks on the interplay between term premiums, the shape of the yield curve, and the macroeconomy.

A Macroeconomic Approach to the Term Premium

A Macroeconomic Approach to the Term Premium
Author: Emanuel Kopp
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2018-06-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484363671

In recent years, term premia have been very low and sometimes even negative. Now, with the United States economy growing above potential, inflationary pressures are on the rise. Term premia are very sensitive to the expected future path of growth, inflation, and monetary policy, and an inflation surprise could require monetary policy to tighten faster than anticipated, inducing to a sudden decompression of term and other risk premia, thus tightening financial conditions. This paper proposes a semi-structural dynamic term structure model augmented with macroeconomic factors to include cyclical dynamics with a focus on medium- to long-run forecasts. Our results clearly show that a macroeconomic approach is warranted: While term premium estimates are in line with those from other studies, we provide (i) plausible, stable estimates of expected long-term interest rates and (ii) forecasts of short- and long-term interest rates as well as cyclical macroeconomic variables that are stunningly close to those generated from large-scale macroeconomic models.

Macro Risks and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

Macro Risks and the Term Structure of Interest Rates
Author: Geert Bekaert
Publisher:
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

We use non-Gaussian features in U.S. macroeconomic data to identify aggregate supply and demand shocks while imposing minimal economic assumptions. Recessions in the 1970s and 1980s were driven primarily by supply shocks; later recessions by demand shocks. We estimate macro risk factors that drive "bad" (negatively skewed) and "good" (positively skewed) variation for supply and demand shocks. We document that macro risks significantly contribute to the variation of yields, risk premiums and return variances for nominal bonds. While overall bond risk premiums are counter-cyclical, an increase in aggregate demand variance significantly lowers risk premiums.

Yield Curve Modeling and Forecasting

Yield Curve Modeling and Forecasting
Author: Francis X. Diebold
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2013-01-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691146802

Understanding the dynamic evolution of the yield curve is critical to many financial tasks, including pricing financial assets and their derivatives, managing financial risk, allocating portfolios, structuring fiscal debt, conducting monetary policy, and valuing capital goods. Unfortunately, most yield curve models tend to be theoretically rigorous but empirically disappointing, or empirically successful but theoretically lacking. In this book, Francis Diebold and Glenn Rudebusch propose two extensions of the classic yield curve model of Nelson and Siegel that are both theoretically rigorous and empirically successful. The first extension is the dynamic Nelson-Siegel model (DNS), while the second takes this dynamic version and makes it arbitrage-free (AFNS). Diebold and Rudebusch show how these two models are just slightly different implementations of a single unified approach to dynamic yield curve modeling and forecasting. They emphasize both descriptive and efficient-markets aspects, they pay special attention to the links between the yield curve and macroeconomic fundamentals, and they show why DNS and AFNS are likely to remain of lasting appeal even as alternative arbitrage-free models are developed. Based on the Econometric and Tinbergen Institutes Lectures, Yield Curve Modeling and Forecasting contains essential tools with enhanced utility for academics, central banks, governments, and industry.

A Macroeconomic Approach to the Term Premium

A Macroeconomic Approach to the Term Premium
Author: Emanuel Kopp
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2018-06-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484362152

In recent years, term premia have been very low and sometimes even negative. Now, with the United States economy growing above potential, inflationary pressures are on the rise. Term premia are very sensitive to the expected future path of growth, inflation, and monetary policy, and an inflation surprise could require monetary policy to tighten faster than anticipated, inducing to a sudden decompression of term and other risk premia, thus tightening financial conditions. This paper proposes a semi-structural dynamic term structure model augmented with macroeconomic factors to include cyclical dynamics with a focus on medium- to long-run forecasts. Our results clearly show that a macroeconomic approach is warranted: While term premium estimates are in line with those from other studies, we provide (i) plausible, stable estimates of expected long-term interest rates and (ii) forecasts of short- and long-term interest rates as well as cyclical macroeconomic variables that are stunningly close to those generated from large-scale macroeconomic models.

Restrictions on Risk Prices in Dynamic Term Structure Models

Restrictions on Risk Prices in Dynamic Term Structure Models
Author: Michael Bauer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 35
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:

Restrictions on the risk-pricing in dynamic term structure models (DTSMs) tighten the link between cross-sectional and time-series variation of interest rates, and make absence of arbitrage useful for inference about expectations. This paper presents a new econometric framework for estimation of affine Gaussian DTSMs under restrictions on risk prices, which addresses the issues of a large model space and of model uncertainty using a Bayesian approach. A simulation study demonstrates the good performance of the proposed method. Data for U.S. Treasury yields calls for tight restrictions on risk pricing: only level risk is priced, and only changes in the slope affect term premia. Incorporating the restrictions changes the model-implied short-rate expectations and term premia. Interest rate persistence is higher than in a maximally-flexible model, hence expectations of future short rates are more variable--restrictions on risk prices help resolve the puzzle of implausibly stable short-rate expectations in this literature. Consistent with survey evidence and conventional macro wisdom, restricted models attribute a large share of the secular decline in long-term interest rates to expectations of future nominal short rates.

Macro Risks and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

Macro Risks and the Term Structure of Interest Rates
Author: Geert Bekaert
Publisher:
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2016
Genre: Gross national product
ISBN:

We extract aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks for the US economy from macroeconomic data on inflation, real GDP growth, core inflation and the unemployment gap. We first use unconditional non-Gaussian features in the data to achieve identification of these structural shocks while imposing minimal economic assumptions. We find that recessions in the 1970s and 1980s are better characterized as driven by supply shocks while later recessions were driven primarily by demand shocks. The Great Recession exhibited large negative shocks to both demand and supply. We then use conditional (time-varying) non-Gaussian features of the structural shocks to estimate "macro risk factors" for supply and demand shocks that drive "bad" (negatively skewed) and "good" (positively skewed) variation for supply and demand shocks. The Great Moderation, a general decline in the volatility of many macroeconomic time series since the 1980s, is mostly accounted for by a reduction in the good demand variance risk factor. In contrast, the risk factors driving bad variance for both supply and demand shocks, which account for most recessions, show no secular decline. Finally, we find that macro risks significantly contribute to the variation in yields, bond risk premiums and the term premium. While overall bond risk premiums are counter-cyclical, an increase in bad demand variance is associated with lower risk premiums on bonds

Expectations Puzzle, Time-Varying Risk Premia, and Dynamic Models of the Term Structure

Expectations Puzzle, Time-Varying Risk Premia, and Dynamic Models of the Term Structure
Author: Qiang Dai
Publisher:
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2001
Genre:
ISBN:

Though linear projections of returns on the slope of the yield curve have contradicted the implications of the traditional quot;expectations theory,quot; we show that these findings are not puzzling relative to a large class of richer dynamic term structure models. Specifically, we are able to match all of the key empirical findings reported by Fama and Bliss and Campbell and Shiller, among others, within large subclasses of affine and quadratic-Gaussian term structure models. Key to this matching are parameterizations of the market prices of risk that let us separately quot;controlquot; the shape of the mean yield curve and the correlation structure of excess returns with the slope of the yield curve. The risk premiums have a simple form consistent with Fama's findings on the predictability of forward rates, and are shown to also be consistent with interest rate, feedback rules used by a monetary authority in setting monetary policy.

Handbook of Economic Forecasting

Handbook of Economic Forecasting
Author: Graham Elliott
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 1386
Release: 2013-10-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0444627413

The highly prized ability to make financial plans with some certainty about the future comes from the core fields of economics. In recent years the availability of more data, analytical tools of greater precision, and ex post studies of business decisions have increased demand for information about economic forecasting. Volumes 2A and 2B, which follows Nobel laureate Clive Granger's Volume 1 (2006), concentrate on two major subjects. Volume 2A covers innovations in methodologies, specifically macroforecasting and forecasting financial variables. Volume 2B investigates commercial applications, with sections on forecasters' objectives and methodologies. Experts provide surveys of a large range of literature scattered across applied and theoretical statistics journals as well as econometrics and empirical economics journals. The Handbook of Economic Forecasting Volumes 2A and 2B provide a unique compilation of chapters giving a coherent overview of forecasting theory and applications in one place and with up-to-date accounts of all major conceptual issues. - Focuses on innovation in economic forecasting via industry applications - Presents coherent summaries of subjects in economic forecasting that stretch from methodologies to applications - Makes details about economic forecasting accessible to scholars in fields outside economics