From 2004 to 2006, the FOMC raised the target federal funds rate by 4.25 percentage points, yet long-maturity yields and forward rates fell. We consider several possible explanations for this "conundrum." The most likely, in our view, is a fall in the term premium, probably associated with some...

I document that the high market returns and good performance of the CAPM associated with FOMC meetings are concentrated on meetings with unanticipated cuts to the Fed funds target rate. Moreover, stocks that perform poorly around meetings with surprise cuts subsequently outperform the market....

A growing literature argues that slower output growth is one of the main contributing factors to the fall in the natural rate of interest. Consistent with this evidence, we show empirically that real GDP growth is a major driver of the nominal yield curve. Specifically, the rate of economic...

If the firm chooses the stock of capital, labor, cash (distributions) so as to maximize its expected discounted present value, its investment policy should adjust endogenously to changes in investor preferences. It is hypothesized that quantitative easing (QE) affects asset prices through a...

We exploit differences in institutional and macroeconomic environments to shed light on what drives variation in the aggregate earnings-returns relation over time within the U.S. and across countries. We find that both intertemporal and cross-country variation in the aggregate earnings-returns...

We document that since 1994, the equity premium is earned entirely in weeks zero, two, four and six in FOMC cycle time, that is, even weeks starting from the last FOMC meeting. We causally tie this fact to the Fed by studying intermeeting target changes, Fed funds futures, and internal Board of...

Upward sloping yield curves are hard to reconcile with the positive association between income and inflation (the Phillips curve) in consumption-based asset pricing models. Using US and UK data, this paper shows inflation is negatively correlated with long-run income growth but positively...

Operating leverage (OL) and profitability are interrelated determinants of stock returns. We show that the outperformance of firms with high OL is driven by periods of unconstrained aggregate funding conditions. Firms with high OL are more risky in general, but when the Fed eases funding...

This paper investigates spillovers from foreign economies to the U.S. through changes in longterm Treasury yields. We document a decline in the contribution of U.S. domestic news to the variance of long-term Treasury yields and an increased importance of overnight yield changes—a rough proxy...

This study examines the relationship between bond fund flows, stock market returns and financial policies in developed and developing economies. The findings suggest a bidirectional (negative) relationship between bond flows and market returns in the presence of fiscal and monetary policy for...