This paper is the first to document the presence of a private premium in public bonds. We find that spreads are 30 basis points higher for public bonds of private companies than for bonds of public companies, even after controlling for observable differences, including rating, financial...

We investigate the factor structure of the term structure of interest rates and argue that characterizing the minimal dimension of the data generating process is more challenging than currently appreciated. As a result, inference procedures for yield curve models that commit to a parsimoniously...

We propose a nonparametric Bayesian approach for conducting inference on probabilistic surveys. We use this approach to study whether U.S. Survey of Professional Forecasters density projections for output growth and inflation are consistent with the noisy rational expectations hypothesis. We...

Pensions and deferred compensation represent substantial components of CEO incentives. We study stockholder and bondholder reactions to companies' initial reports of CEOs' inside debt positions following a 2007 SEC disclosure reform. We find that bond prices rise, equity prices fall, and the...

This paper evaluates rigorously the predictive power of the head-and-shoulders pattern as applied to daily exchange rates. Though such visual, nonlinear chart patterns are applied frequently by technical analysts, our paper is one of the first to evaluate the predictive power of such patterns....

This paper identifies a specific set of agents as noise traders in U.S. equity markets, and examines their effects on returns. These agents, who speculate using the quot;head-and-shouldersquot; chart pattern, are shown to qualify as noise traders because (1) trading volume is exceptionally high...

U.S. Treasury securities fill several crucial roles in financial markets: they are a risk-free benchmark, a reference and hedging benchmark, and a reserve asset to the Federal Reserve and other financial institutions. Many of the features that make the Treasury market an attractive benchmark and...

Does the presence of arbitrageurs decrease equilibrium asset price volatility? I study an economy with arbitrageurs, informed investors, and noise traders. Arbitrageurs face a trade-off between arbitrage and inference: they would like to buy assets in response to temporary price declines (the...

We examine the economic mechanisms that limited arbitrage between the cash and forward markets of agency MBS, and whether asset purchases of the Federal Reserve (Fed) alleviated price dislocations. We find that the cash-forward basis, or the price difference between the cash and forward markets...

We estimate the effects of peer benchmarking by institutional investors on asset prices. To identify trades purely due to peer benchmarking as separate from those based on fundamentals or private information, we exploit a natural experiment involving a change in a government-imposed...