This paper asks, 'how false is the expectations theory of the term structure?’. Most previous work has asked, 'is the expectations theory true?’ and finds that it is not. The goal here is to gauge the economic importance of these answers in the negative by estimating the specification error in the expectations theory. The variance of the estimated specification error (suitably normalized) provides a metric for assessing the validity of the model. I find that, while the expectations theory can be rejected, the importance of the rejection is much less than that implied by previous studies, so that the theory may still be a useful tool for understanding the relationships between interest rates at different maturities.
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.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal Applied Economics.
Volume (Year): 29 (1997) Issue (Month): 9 (September) Pages: 1239-1247 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
References listed on IDEAS 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.: