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...

Identification problems arise naturally in forward-looking models when agents observe more than economists. We illustrate the problem in several New Keynesian and macro-finance models in which the Taylor rule includes a shock unseen by economists. We show that identification of the rule's...

We propose two metrics for asset pricing models and apply them to representative agent models with recursive preferences, habits, and jumps. The metrics describe the pricing kernel's dispersion (the entropy of the title) and dynamics (time dependence, a measure of how entropy varies over...

High interest rate currencies tend to appreciate. This is the uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) puzzle. It is primarily a statement about short-term interest rates and how they are related to exchange rates. Short-term interest rates are strongly affected by monetary policy. The UIP puzzle,...

Prices of riskfree bonds in any arbitrage-free environment are governed by a pricing kernel: given a kernel, we can compute prices of bonds of any maturity we like. We use observed prices of multi-period bonds to estimate, in a log-linear theoretical setting, the pricing kernel that gave rise to...

We use a fractional difference model to reconcile two features of yields on US government bonds with modem asset pricing theory: the persistence of the short rate and variability of the long end of the yield curve. We suggest that this process might arise from the response of the heterogeneous...

I examine the evolution of the Japanese trade balance and its relation to the terms of trade and the value of the yen. Using a vector time series model, I predict that the trade surplus will fall from a high of 3.7 percent of GNP in late 1992 to about 2.6 percent in 1995. This relatively modest...

We examine the relationship between monetary-policy-induced changes in short interest rates and yields on long-maturity default-free bonds. The volatility of the long end of the term structure and its relationship with monetary policy are puzzling from the perspective of simple structural...

Recent empirical research shows that a reasonable characterization of federal-funds-rate targeting behavior is that the change in the target rate depends on the maturity structure of interest rates and exhibits little dependence on lagged target rates. See, for example, Cochrane and Piazzesi...

We provide an axiomatic model of preferences over atemporal risks that generalizes Gul (1991) A Theory of Disappointment Aversion' by allowing risk aversion to be first order' at locations in the state space that do not correspond to certainty. Since the lotteries being valued by an agent in an...