The bond yield conundrum: alternative hypotheses and the state of the economy

We study the bond yield conundrum in a macro-finance framework. Building upon a flexible and non-structural macro-finance model, we test the hypothesis that the bond yield conundrum is connected to various sources of uncertainty in the financial markets. Moreover we explicitly test for the role of the state of the economy. Our findings give a richer description of the drivers of the term premium yet the conundrum remains. The results in this paper indicate that the underlying observable drivers of the term premium are not yet fully understood.