This paper evaluates the role of inflation-forecast heterogeneity in US monetary policy making. The deviation between private and central bank inflation forecasts is identified as a factor increasing inflation persistence and thus calling for a policy reaction. An optimal policy rule is derived...

We find evidence of heterogeneity and irrationality among professional forecasts for three-month inter-bank rates and ten-year gilt yields at both short and long forecast horizons over the period 1989–2006. The majority of biased forecasts overestimate the future spot rate, consistent with...

Before August 2007, implied forward rates in the overnight interest swap rates closely reflected market expectations about the future path of the Eonia, and therefore, about the future course of the ECB’s monetary policy stance. Nevertheless, this link was weakened considerably during the most...

We use information in the term structure of survey-based forecasts of inflation to estimate a factor hidden in the nominal yield curve. We construct a model that accommodates forecasts over multiple horizons from multiple surveys and Treasury real and nominal yields by allowing for differences...

We explore the role of evolving beliefs regarding the structure of the macroeconomy in improving our understanding of the term structure of interest rates within the context of a simple macro-finance model. Using quarterly vintages of real-time data and survey forecasts for the United States...

I provide evidence that risks in macroeconomic fundamentals contain valuable information about bond risk premia. I extract factors from a set of quantile-based risk measures estimated for US macroeconomic variables and document that they account for up to 31% of the variation in excess bond...

Monthly interest rate forecasts from nearly 50 major financial institutions are used to examine the expectations hypothesis at the short end of the term structure for the Canadian T-bill market and Libor markets in the US, UK, and Switzerland. Using CVARs, the term premium is found to move...

Evidence from this study suggests that investor sentiment and the peso problem play a significant role in explaining expectation errors, rejecting the unbiased expectation hypothesis (UEH). The deviation of the UEH for long-term rates is mainly attributable to expectation errors, whereas the...

This paper explores the history of inflation-indexed bond markets in the US and the UK. It documents a massive decline in long-term real interest rates from the 1990's until 2008, followed by a sudden spike in these rates during the financial crisis of 2008. Breakeven inflation rates, calculated...

The estimation of dynamic no-arbitrage term structure models with a flexible specification of the market price of risk is beset by a severe small-sample problem arising from the highly persistent nature of interest rates. We propose using survey forecasts of a short-term interest rate as an...