A Macro-Finance Model of the Term Structure, Monetary Policy, and the Economy

This paper develops and estimates a macro-finance model that combines a canonical affine no-arbitrage finance specification of the term structure with standard macroeconomic aggregate relationships for output and inflation. From this new empirical formulation, we obtain several important results: (1) the latent term structure factors from finance no-arbitrage models appear to have important macroeconomic and monetary policy underpinnings, (2) there is no evidence of monetary policy inertia or a slow partial adjustment of the policy interest rate by the Federal Reserve, and (3) both forward-looking and backward-looking elements play important roles in macroeconomic dynamics