IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/exe/wpaper/9402.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Rational Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure: Reconciling the Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Tzavalis, Elias
  • Wickens, Michael

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to test the rational expectations hypothesis of the term structure (REHTS). Existing empirical studies of the REHTS provide inconsistent evidence. Tests based on the local expectations hypothesis (LEH) version of the REHTS tend to be far less supportive than those based on the return to maturity expectations hypothesis (RTMEH), especially when they concern the short-run implications of the hypothesis. This paper explains the differences between these alternative versions of the REHTS and estimates a number of models to try to explain the inconsistencies in previous results. Our conclusions are that the most probable cause of these differences is the failure to take account of the presence of a time-varying term premium. Once this is accounted for both short-run and long-run evidence is found to support the REHTS. Estimates of variance bounds of the term premium suggest that it may not vary sufficiently to be the sole explanation for the differences.

Suggested Citation

  • Tzavalis, Elias & Wickens, Michael, 1994. "The Rational Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure: Reconciling the Evidence," Discussion Papers 9402, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:exe:wpaper:9402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Theis Lange, 2009. "First and second order non-linear cointegration models," CREATES Research Papers 2009-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    2. Tzavalis, Elias & Wickens, M. R., 1996. "Forecasting inflation from the term structure," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 103-122, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Term structure; rational expectations; cointegration; VAR.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:exe:wpaper:9402. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sebastian Kripfganz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deexeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.