When nominal interest rates are near their zero lower bound (ZLB), as in many developed economies at the time of writing, it is theoretically untenable to apply the popular class of Gaussian affine term structure models (GATSMs) given their inherent material probabilities of negative interest...

With nominal interest rates near the zero lower bound (ZLB) in many major economies, it is theoretically untenable to apply Gaussian affine term structure models (GATSMs) while ignoring their inherent material probabilities of negative interest rates. I propose correcting that deficiency by...

I propose a simple framework that quantities the stance of monetary policy as a "shadow short rate" when interest rates are near the zero lower bound. The framework is shown to be a close approximation to the Black (1995) framework for modelling the term structure subject to a zero-lower-bound...

We forecast economic growth in New Zealand using yield curve data within simple statistical models; i.e. typical OLS relationships that have been well-established for other countries, and related VAR specifcations. We find that the yield curve data has significant forecasting power in absolute...

This article establishes that most models within the popular and widely used Nelson and Siegel (1987, hereafter NS) class, with one notable exception being the Svensson (1995) variant, are effectively reduced-form representations of the generic Gaussian affine term structure model outlined in...

The interest rate which corresponds to neutral monetary policy settings in New Zealand appears to have trended downwards since at least the stabilisation of inflation in 1992. We present several alternative estimates of a time varying neutral real interest rate (NRR) in state space models, which...

We conduct a high frequency event analysis to estimate the effects of monetary policy surprises, data surprises, and central bank verbal statements on the New Zealand-US dollar and the New Zealand-Australian dollar exchange rates. We find data surprises and monetary policy surprises have...

The hypothesis that a forward term-premium (FTP) exists between forward 1- day rates calculated from the New Zealand bank-risk yield curve and the corresponding ex-post Official Cash Rate (OCR) is tested by applying a single equation method for a cointegrated system to daily data from March 1999...

Forward rates in the money market are systematically higher than realised spot rates, reflecting an unobservable term premium. This paper uses a Kalman filter specification to produce time-varying estimates of the term premia in New Zealand and Australia. Three time series specifications are...

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is regarded as one of the most transparent central banks in the world. Recent research suggests that one benefit of such transparency is that financial markets better anticipate a central bank's reaction to incoming data, and in relation, do not over-react...