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Cracking the Conundrum

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Author Info

  • David K. Backus

    (New York University)

  • Jonathan H. Wright

    (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System)

Abstract

From 2004 to 2006 the Federal Open Market Committee 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 of rising short-term and falling long-term interest rates. The most likely, in our view, is a fall in the term premium, probably associated with some combination of diminished macroeconomic and financial market volatility, more predictable monetary policy, and the state of the business cycle.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution in its journal Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.

Volume (Year): 38 (2007)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 293-329
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Handle: RePEc:bin:bpeajo:v:38:y:2007:i:2007-1:p:293-329

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Keywords: macroeconomics; Federal funds rate; interest rates; financial market volatility;

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References

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  1. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Jonathan H. Wright, 2006. "The U.S. Treasury yield curve: 1961 to the present," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-28, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  2. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert, 2004. "The term structure of real rates and expected inflation," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
  3. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(2), pages 1-100.
  4. Gregory R. Duffee, 2002. "Term Premia and Interest Rate Forecasts in Affine Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 405-443, 02.
  5. Antonio Moreno & Geert Bekaert & Seonghoon Cho, 2004. "New-Keynesian Macroeconomics and the Term Structure," 2004 Meeting Papers 388, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  6. Don H. Kim & Athanasios Orphanides, 2005. "Term structure estimation with survey data on interest rate forecasts," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-48, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  7. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Eric T. Swanson & Tao Wu, 2006. "The Bond Yield "Conundrum" from a Macro-Finance Perspective," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 24(S1), pages 83-109, December.
  8. John H. Cochrane & Monika Piazzesi, 2002. "Bond Risk Premia," NBER Working Papers 9178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika, 2003. "A no-arbitrage vector autoregression of term structure dynamics with macroeconomic and latent variables," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 745-787, May.
  10. Darrell Duffie & Rui Kan, 1996. "A Yield-Factor Model Of Interest Rates," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(4), pages 379-406.
  11. Meredith Beechey, 2006. "A closer look at the sensitivity puzzle: the sensitivity of expected future short rates and term premia to macroeconomic news," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-06, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  12. Shiller, Robert J, 1979. "The Volatility of Long-Term Interest Rates and Expectations Models of the Term Structure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1190-1219, December.
  13. Gallmeyer, Michael F. & Hollifield, Burton & Zin, Stanley E., 2005. "Taylor rules, McCallum rules and the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(5), pages 921-950, July.
  14. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2005. "The Sensitivity of Long-Term Interest Rates to Economic News: Evidence and Implications for Macroeconomic Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 425-436, March.
  15. Dai, Qiang & Singleton, Kenneth J., 2002. "Expectation puzzles, time-varying risk premia, and affine models of the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 415-441, March.
  16. Francis E. Warnock & Veronica Cacdac Warnock, 2006. "International Capital Flows and U.S. Interest Rates," NBER Working Papers 12560, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Don H. Kim, 2009. "Challenges in macro-finance modeling," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Sep, pages 519-544.
  2. Matteo Modena, 2008. "The Term Structure and the Expectations Hypothesis: a Threshold Model," Working Papers 2008_36, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
  3. Dewachter, Hans & Iania, Leonardo, 2009. "An Extended Macro-Finance Model with Financial Factors," MPRA Paper 18840, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Taboga, Marco, 2009. "Macro-finance VARs and bond risk premia: A caveat," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 163-171, October.
  5. Don H Kim, 2007. "Spanned stochastic volatility in bond markets: a reexamination of the relative pricing between bonds and bond options," BIS Working Papers 239, Bank for International Settlements.
  6. Modena, Matteo, 2008. "Yield curve, time varying term premia, and business cycle fluctuations," MPRA Paper 8873, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  7. John Y. Campbell & Adi Sunderam & Luis M. Viceira, 2009. "Inflation Bets or Deflation Hedges? The Changing Risks of Nominal Bonds," NBER Working Papers 14701, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Jonathan H. Wright, 2010. "The TIPS Yield Curve and Inflation Compensation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 70-92, January.
  9. Don Kim, 2008. "Challenges in macro-finance modeling," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-06, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

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