This paper tests the joint hypothesis of rational expectations and the expectations model of the term structure for three- and six-month Treasury bills. Previous studies are extended in three directions. First, common efficient markets-rational expectations tests are compared, and it is shown...

When all financial assets have risky returns, the mean-variance portfolio model is potentially subject to two types of bliss points. One bliss point arises when a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function displays negative marginal utility for sufficiently large end-of-period wealth, such as in...

This paper summarizes some recent work in which we have modeled long-term interest rate determination in an explicit demand-supply context, using multi-equation structural models and directly contrasts such models with unrestricted reduced-form models. Wholly apart from questions of...

This paper develops behavioral relationships explaining investors' demands for long-term bonds, using three alternative hypotheses about investors' expectations of future bond prices (yields). The results, based on U.S. 'data for six major categories of bond market investors, consistently...

Among the numerous familiar sets of specific assumptions sufficient to derive mean-variance portfolio behavior from more general expected utility maximization in continuous time, the assumptions of constant relative risk aversion and joint normally distributed asset return assessments are also...

This paper derives an estimation procedure which, when the same distributed lag appears twice in an equation to be estimated by least-squares regression, identifies all of the relevant coefficients and lag weights and also constrains the two sets of individual lag weights to be identical. The...

Previous research finds that fundamental macroeconomic news has little effect on stock prices. This study shows that after allowing for different stages of the business cycle, a stronger relationship between stock prices and news is evident. In particular, the empirical results suggest that the...

A number of studies find significant temporal variation in the interest-rate response to money announcement surprises. An unresolved question, however, is whether the response changes immediately as different policy regimes are adopted, or whether the change is gradual reflecting the...

Intraday movements in the yen/dollar rate are examined over the 1980-86 period using opening and closing quotes in the New York and Tokyo markets. The results indicate that random-walk behavior is violated about half of the time in various subsamples. However, the economic significance of...

The financial market's understanding of Federal Reserve behavior is used to examine recent changes in monetary policy. Changes in the level of interest rats in response to specific types of economic information are primarily considered. Differences in the volatility of interest rates across...