This paper describes a method for computing risk-neutral density functions based on the option-implied volatility smile. Its aim is to reduce complexity and provide cookbook-style guidance through the estimation process. The technique is robust and avoids violations of option no-arbitrage...

Purportedly consistent with “risk parity” (RP) asset allocation, recent studies document compelling “low risk” trading strategies that exploit a persistently negative relation between Sharpe ratios (SRs) and maturity along the U.S. Treasury (UST) term structure. This paper extends this...

We study general equilibrium asset prices in a multi-period endowment economy when agents’ risk aversion is allowed to depend on the maturity of the risk. We find horizon-dependent risk aversion preferences generate a decreasing term structure of risk premia if and only if volatility is...

A vast literature reports excess returns to momentum strategies across many financial asset classes. However, no study examines trading rules based on price history along individual government-bond term structures—that is, with respect to duration buckets across the curve—as opposed to...

We examine the relationship between monetary policy operations and interbank borrowing and lending of funds using sovereign bonds as collateral. We first establish that, in the precrisis period, there are important but rather weak relations between these funding sources and that this...

A small but ambitious literature uses affine arbitrage-free models to estimate jointly U.S. Treasury term premiums and the term structure of equity risk premiums. Within this approach, this paper identifies the parameter restrictions that are consistent with a simple dividend discount model,...

The illiquidity of long-maturity options has made it difficult to study the term structures of option spanning portfolios. This paper proposes a new estimation and inference framework for these option-implied term structures that addresses long-maturity illiquidity. By building a sieve estimator...

Spreads of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) vary significantly in the cross section and over time, but the sources of this variation are not well understood. We document that, in the cross section, MBS spreads adjusted for the prepayment option show a pronounced smile with respect to the...

We consider the desirability of modifying a standard Taylor rule for a central bank's interest rate policy to incorporate either an adjustment for changes in interest rate spreads (as proposed by Taylor [2008] and McCulley and Toloui [2008]) or a response to variations in the aggregate volume of...

The empirical DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) literature pays surprisingly little attention to the behavior of the monetary authority. Alternative policy rule specifications abound, but their relative merit is rarely discussed. We contribute to filling this gap by comparing the fit...