The term structure of interest rates is a key instrument for financial research. It provides relevant information for pricing deterministic financial cash flows, it measures economic market expectations and it is extremely useful when assessing the effectiveness of monetary policy decisions. However, it is not directly observable and needs to be estimated by smoothing asset pricing data through statistical techniques. The most popular techniques adjust parsimonious functional forms based on bond yields to maturity. Unfortunately, these functions, which need to be optimised, are highly non-linear which make them very sensitive to the initial conditions. In this context, this paper proposes the use of genetic algorithms to find the values for the initial conditions and to reduce the risk of false convergence, showing that stable parameters are obtained without imposing arbitrary restrictions.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 53 (2009) Issue (Month): 6 (April) Pages: 2236-2250 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Heidi Boesdal).
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)