Forward guidance policies are often argued to stimulate economic activity by reducing nominal long term interest rates. We document why a lower nominal long rate is neither necessary nor sufficient for forward guidance to be successful. We determine the mechanisms behind widely varying long rate...

We use a macro-finance model, incorporating macroeconomic and financial factors, to study the term premium in the U.S. bond market. Estimating the model using Bayesian techniques, we find that a single factor explains most of the variation in bond risk premiums. Furthermore, the model-implied...