Conditional yield skewness is an important summary statistic of the state of the economy. It exhibits pronounced variation over the business cycle and with the stance of monetary policy, and a tight relationship with the slope of the yield curve. Most importantly, variation in yield skewness has...

High-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements are an important tool for identifying the effects of monetary policy on asset prices and the macroeconomy. However, some recent studies have questioned both the exogeneity and the relevance of these monetary policy surprises as...

We estimate perceptions about the Fed's monetary policy rule from micro data on professional forecasters. The perceived rule varies significantly over time, with important consequences for monetary policy and bond markets. Over the monetary policy cycle, easings are perceived to be quick and...

High-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements are a standard method of measuring monetary policy shocks. However, some recent studies have documented puzzling effects of these shocks on private-sector forecasts of GDP, unemployment, or inflation that are opposite in sign to...

A consensus has recently emerged that variables beyond the level, slope, and curvature of the yield curve can help predict bond returns. This paper shows that the statistical tests underlying this evidence are subject to serious small-sample distortions. We propose more robust tests, including a...

Long-run asset-pricing restrictions in a macro term-structure model identify discretionary monetary policy separately from a policy rule. We find that policy discretion is an important contributor to aggregate risk. In addition, discretionary easing coincides with good news about the...

We present evidence that the mix of transitory and permanent shocks to consumption is changing over time. We study the implications of this finding for asset prices. The uncovered dynamics of consumption implies modestly upward sloping real bond and equity curves, upward sloping nominal yield...

Since the Global Financial Crisis, rates on interest rate swaps have fallen below maturity matched U.S. Treasury rates across different maturities. Swap rates represent future uncollateralized borrowing between banks. Treasuries should be expensive and produce yields that are lower than those of...

The depreciation rate is often computed as the ratio of foreign and domestic pricing kernels. Using bond prices alone to estimate these kernels leads to currency puzzles: the inability of models to match violations of uncovered interest parity and the volatility of exchange rates. One cannot use...

We propose testing asset-pricing models using multi-horizon returns (MHR). A correctly specified stochastic discount factor prices the cross-section of returns at all horizons. We show that MHR are informative about the model's conditional implications. Different from typical conditioning...