Empirical evidence on the expectations hypothesis of the term structure is in-conclusive and its validity widely debated. Using a cointegrated VAR model of US treasury yields, this paper extends a common approach to test the theory. If, as we find, spreads between two yields are non-stationary,...

Despite the single currency, yields on government bonds in the Euro Area deviate from German bond yields. These bond spreads are usually attributed to differing default and liquidity risks. Recent research points out that time-varying global factors, approximated by risk measures or short term...

I apply the Johansen and Swensen (1999, 2004) method of testing exact rational expectations within the cointegrated VAR (Vector Auto-Regressive) model, to testing the New Keynesian (NK) model. This method permits the testing of rational expectation systems, while allowing for non-stationary...

This paper estimates a common component in many price series that has an equiproportional effect on all prices. Changes in this component can be interpreted as changes in the value of the numeraire since, by definition, they leave all relative prices unchanged. The first aim of the paper is to...

This paper studies the effects of ECB communications about unconventional monetary policy operations on the perceived sovereign risk of Italy over the last five years. More than fifty events concerning non-standard operations are identified and classified with respect to the specific ECB...

In this paper, we elaborate on an idea initially developed by Weitzman (1998) that justifies taking the lowest possible discount rate for far-distant future cash flows. His argument relies on the arbitrary assumption that when the future rate of return of capital (RRC) is uncertain, one should...

We find that real interest rates paid on government debt depend significantly upon current and expected future levels of debt, in Europe as in the US. But this result only emerges when we condition on foreign interest rates, illustrating financial international integration. The previously strong...

The paper investigates which factors determine the expected real long-term interest rates of the G7-countries as a whole within a single equation error correction model. Inflationary expectations are generated using the low frequency component of inflation provided by the Hodrick-Prescott...

This paper asks why modern finance theory and the efficient market hypothesis have failed to explain long-term carry trades; persistent asset bubbles or zero lower bounds; and financial crises. It extends Keen (Solving the Paradox of Monetary Profits, 2010) and the Theory of the Monetary Circuit...

In this paper the author proves that the Expected Net Future Value (ENFV) criterion can lead a risk neutral social planner to reject projects that increase expected utility. By contrast, the Expected Net Present Value (ENPV) rule correctly identifies the economic value of the project. While the...