Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005) show that (i) lagged forward rates improve the predictability of annual bond returns, adding to current forward rates, and that (ii) a Markovian model for monthly forward rates cannot generate the pattern of predictability in annual returns. These results stand as a...

Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005) show that (i) lagged forward rates help predict bond returns and that (ii) modern Markovian dynamic term structure models (DTSMs) cannot match the evidence. We develop the family of Conditional Mean DTSMs where the dynamics depend on current yields and their history...

We build a model for bond yields based on a small-scale representation of an economy with secular declines in inflation, the real rate and output growth. Long-run restrictions identify nominal shocks that influence long-run inflation but do not influence the long-run real rate or output growth....

We build a small-scale representation of an economy in which the short rate, inflation and output exhibit unobserved secular and cyclical components that both drive bond yields. We impose the economic restriction that expected bond returns are purely cyclical so that their variance does not...

We provide a decomposition of nominal yields into real yields, expectations of future inflation and inflation risk premiums when real bonds or inflation swaps are unavailable or unreliable due to their relative illiquidity. We combine nominal yields with surveys of inflation forecasts within a...

Standard Gaussian macro-finance term structure models impose the Markov property: the conditional mean is a function of the risk factors. We relax this assumption parsimoniously, and consider models where yields are linear in the conditional mean (but not in the risk factors). To illustrate, if...

Macro news have large impact on bond yields in high-frequency data. We aggregate the impact of macro news within each month, which we use in a no-arbitrage term structure models. We find that macro news explain 50 percent in the term premium of the 10-year bond at the monthly frequency and 40...

We provide a novel daily decomposition of the real exchange rate that exploits a direct link between bond and foreign exchange (FX) markets. Real exchange rate dynamics can be attributed to changes in the expected future level of the exchange rate; cross-country differentials of expected...

We introduce the Homoscedastic Gamma [HG] model where the distribution of returns is characterized by its mean, variance and an independent skewness parameter under both measures. The model predicts that the spread between historical and risk-neutral volatilities is a function of the risk...

We develop a discrete-time affine stochastic volatility model with time-varying conditional skewness (SVS). Importantly, we disentangle the dynamics of conditional volatility and conditional skewness in a coherent way. Our approach allows current asset returns to be asymmetric conditional on...