The literature gives evidence that term spreads help predict output growth, inflation, and interest rates. This paper integrates and explains these predictability results by using an affine term structure model with observable macroeconomic factors. The results suggest that consumers are willing...

To date the cointegrating properties and the regime-switching behavior of the term structure are two separate strands of the literature. This paper integrates these lines of research and introduces regime shifts into a cointegrated VAR model. We argue that the short-run dynamics of the...

It is known that stock returns are affected by monetary policy. This paper theoretically and empirically investigates whether asymmetric information between the Federal Reserve and the public causes the relation between stock returns and monetary policy actions. The paper concludes that...

Various approaches to optimal monetary policy have been used to select time-invariant policy rules, including the timeless perspective approach by Woodford (1999) and the unconditional expected utility criterion of McCallum (2000). In this paper, we argue instead that policy rules should be...

Under a Bayesian framework of model uncertainty, closed economy models of monetary policy typically suggest that policy responses should be attenuated. Conversely, under a Knightian view of uncertainty, where the policymaker cannot specify probabilities across alternative models, intensifying...

This paper proposes a simple framework for analyzing a continuum of monetary policy rules characterized by differing degrees of credibility, in which commitment and discretion become special cases of what we call quasi commitment. The monetary policy authority is assumed to formulate optimal...

This paper investigates the properties of optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a two sector small open economy. If the government can optimally select all possible distorting tax rates, then it can implement Pareto efficient outcomes and the Friedman Rule is found to be a necessary condition...

In this paper we incorporate the term structure of interest rates in a standard inflation forecast targeting framework. Learning about the transmission process of monetary policy is introduced by having heterogeneous agents - i.e. the central bank and private agents - who have different...

This paper incorporates the systematic risk of regime shifts into a general equilibrium model of the term structure of interest rates. The model shows that there is a new source of time-variation in bond term premiums in the presence of regime shifts. This new component is a regime-switching...

This paper uses the flexible approach of Hamilton (2001) to investigate the nature of nonlinearities in the term structure. The paper reports clear evidence of nonlinearity, in contrast to the affine term structure model and consistent with recent claims in the literature. We find that there is...