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Fundamental Disagreement about Monetary Policy and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

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Abstract

Using a unique data set of individual professional forecasts, we document disagreement about the future path of monetary policy, particularly at longer horizons. The stark differences in short rate forecasts imply strong disagreement about the risk-return trade-off of longer-term bonds. Longer-horizon short rate disagreement co-moves with term premiums. We estimate an affine term structure model in which investors hold heterogeneous beliefs about the long-run level of rates. Our model fits Treasury yields and the short rate paths predicted by different groups of investors and thus matches the observed differences in expected return profiles. Investors who correctly anticipated the secular decline in rates became increasingly important for the marginal pricing of risk in the Treasury market. Accounting for heterogeneity in investment performance eliminates the downward trend in the term premium.

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  • Shuo Cao & Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Emanuel Moench, 2020. "Fundamental Disagreement about Monetary Policy and the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Staff Reports 934, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:88406
    Note: Revised August 2021.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kenneth J. Singleton, 2021. "Presidential Address: How Much “Rationality” Is There in Bond‐Market Risk Premiums?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(4), pages 1611-1654, August.
    2. Ricardo Reis, 2020. "The People versus the Markets: A Parsimonious Model of Inflation Expectations," Discussion Papers 2033, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    3. Christiane Baumeister, 2021. "Measuring Market Expectations," Working Papers 202163, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    4. Marco Giacoletti & Kristoffer T. Laursen & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2021. "Learning From Disagreement in the U.S. Treasury Bond Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(1), pages 395-441, February.
    5. Maryam Movahedifar & Hossein Hassani & Masoud Yarmohammadi & Mahdi Kalantari & Rangan Gupta, 2021. "A robust approach for outlier imputation: Singular Spectrum Decomposition," Working Papers 202164, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    disagreement; heterogeneous beliefs; noisy information; speculations; survey forecasts; yield curves; term premiums;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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