Standard approaches to building and estimating dynamic term structure models rely on the assumption that yields can serve as the factors. However, the assumption is neither theoretically necessary nor empirically supported. This paper documents that almost half of the variation in bond risk...

Conditional maximum Sharpe ratios implied by fully flexible four-factor and five-factor Gaussian term structure models are astronomically high. Estimation of term structure models subject to a constraint on their Sharpe ratios uncovers properties that hold for a wide range of Sharpe ratios....

The recent interest in portfolio credit risk modelling has concentrated attention on the correlation structure of credit risk. This paper calculates long-holding period correlations for emerging market sovereign spreads and compares these with the correlations of equity market indices for the...

This paper studies high-frequency econometric methods to test for a jump in the spread of bond yields. We propose a coherent inference procedure that detects a jump in the yield spread only if at least one of the two underlying bonds displays a jump. Ignoring this inherent connection by basing...

The decomposition of bond yields into term premiums and average expected future short rates is impaired by the limited availability of information about the dynamics of the expectations component. Therefore, many studies require the model-implied average expected future short rates to be close...

We investigate the performance of the Heston stochastic volatility model in describing the probability distribution of returns both in the case of single assets and in the case of asset portfolios. The R. parameters of the Heston model are estimated from observed market prices using a simple...

We develop an agent-based model (ABM) of a financial market with multiple assets belonging either to the fixed income or equity asset classes. The aim is to reproduce the main stylized facts of fixed income markets with regards to the emerging dynamics of the yield curves. Our ABM is rooted in...

Using a unique data set of individual professional forecasts, we document disagreement about the future path of monetary policy, particularly at longer horizons. The stark differences in short rate forecasts imply strong disagreement about the risk-return trade-off of longer-term bonds....