This paper reviews the literature on the relation between short- and long-term interest rates. It summarizes the mixed evidence on the expectations hypothesis of the term structure: when long rates are high relative to short rates, short rates tend to rise as implied by the expectations...

This paper estimates expected future real interest rates and inflation rates from observed prices of UK government nominal and index-linked bonds. The estimation method takes account of imperfections in the indexation of UK index-linked bonds. It assumes that expected log returns on all bonds...

It is well known that in the postwar period stockreturns have tended to be low when the short term nominal interest rate is high. In this paper I show that more generally the state of the term structure of interest rates predicts stock returns. Risk premia on stocks appear to move closely...

Expectations theories of asset returns may be interpreted as stating either that risk premia are zero, or that they are constant through time. Under the former interpretation, different versions of the expectations theory of the term structure are inconsistent with one another, but I show that...

Recent empirical research on the term structure of interest rates has shown that the long-term interest rate is well described by adistributed lag on short-term interest rates, but does not conform to the expectations theory of the term structure. It has been suggested that the long rate...

The covariance between US Treasury bond returns and stock returns has moved considerably over time. While it was slightly positive on average in the period 1953--2009, it was unusually high in the early 1980''s and negative in the 2000''s, particularly in the downturns of 2000--02 and 2007--09....

Recent research in empirical finance has documented that expected excess returns on bonds and stocks, real interest rates, and risk shift over time in predictable ways. Furthermore, these shifts tend to persist over long periods of time. In this paper we propose an empirical model that is able...

This paper explores the effect of equity volatility on corporate bond yields. Panel data for the late 1990's show that idiosyncratic firm-level volatility can explain as much cross-sectional variation in yields as can credit ratings. This finding, together with the upward trend in idiosyncratic...

According to conventional wisdom, long-term bonds are appropriate for long-term investors who value stability of income. We develop a model of optimal consumption and portfolio choice for infinitely-lived investors facing stochastic interest rates, solve it using an approximate analytical...