In this paper we relate the very persistent component of interest rates to a specific demographic variable, MYt, the proportion of middle-aged to young population. We first reconsider the results in Fama (2006) to document how MYt captures the long run component identified by Fama in his...

Two broad classes of consumption dynamics - long-run risks and rare disasters - have proven successful in explaining the equity premium puzzle when used in conjunction with recursive preference. We show that bounds a-la Gallant, Hansen and Tauchen (1990) that restrict the volatility of the...

Interest rates are very persistent. Modelling the persistent component of interest rates has important consequences for forecasting. Consider Affine Term Structure Models (ATSM): given the dynamics of the short term rate, a stationary VAR for the factors is used to project the entire term...