We assess whether the euro had an impact first on the degree of integration of European financial markets, and, second, on the euro area term structure. We propose two methodologies to measure integration: one relies on time-varying GARCH correlations, and the other one on a regression...

In a world of interconnected financial markets it is plausible that risk appetite — an important factor in asset pricing — is determined globally. By constructing an estimate of variance risk premia (VRP) for UK, US and euro-area equity markets, we are able to estimate international variance...

We find that augmenting a regression of excess bond returns on the term structure of forward rates with a rolling estimate of the mean realized jump size - identified from high-frequency bond returns using the bi-power variation technique - substantially increases the R2 of the regression. This...

In the context of both the reluctance of China to make its Yuan flexible and the current havoc of the sovereign debt markets in Europe, the philosophical debate about the pros and cons of fixed versus flexible exchange rates leaves out an important superior alternative system: flexible spot...

The slope of the Treasury yield curve has often been cited as a leading economic indicator, with inversion of the curve being thought of as a harbinger of a recession. In this paper, I consider a number of probit models using the yield curve to forecast recessions. Models that use both the level...

I estimate a dynamic factor from the risk premium of carry trading of bilateral US Dollar against 15 OECD countries and use that factor to augment the macro fundamentals suggested by the Taylor rule, monetary and purchasing power parity models. Meese and Rogoff (1983) show economic models of...

This paper examines the preferred-habitat theory under time-varying risk aversion. The predicted positive relation between the term spread and relative supply of longer-term debt is stronger when risk aversion is high. To capture this effect, a time-varying coefficient model is introduced and...

This paper analyzes how the different types of inflation uncertainty affect a set of interest rate spreads for the UK. Three types of inflation uncertainty — structural uncertainty, impulse uncertainty, and steady-state inflation uncertainty — are defined and derived by using a time-varying...

Contrary to the predictions of the rational expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates, empirical evidence suggests that the term spread between long and short rates fails to forecast future movements of long term rates although its forecasts of future short term rates are...

We investigate the effects of official fiscal data and creative accounting signals on interest rate spreads between bond yields in the European Union. Our model predicts that risk premia contained in government bond spreads should increase in both, the official fiscal position and the expected...