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Risk and Policy Shocks on the US Term Structure

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  • Enzo Weber
  • Jürgen Wolters

Abstract

We document two stylised facts of US short- and long-term interest rate data incompatible with the pure expectations hypothesis: Relatively slow adjustment to long-run relations and low contemporaneous correlation. We construct a small structural model which features three types of randomness: While a persistent monetary policy shock implies immediate identical reactions through the term structure, both a transitory policy shock and an autocorrelated risk premium allow for the sustained decoupling observed in the data. Indeed, we find important impacts and persistence of risk premia and a decomposition of policy shocks judging a larger part as transitory the longer the investment horizon.
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  • Enzo Weber & Jürgen Wolters, 2013. "Risk and Policy Shocks on the US Term Structure," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 60(1), pages 101-119, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:60:y:2013:i:1:p:101-119
    DOI: sjpe.12004
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    Cited by:

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    2. Soloschenko, Max & Weber, Enzo, 2014. "Capturing the Interaction of Trend, Cycle, Expectations and Risk Premia in the US Term Structure," University of Regensburg Working Papers in Business, Economics and Management Information Systems 475, University of Regensburg, Department of Economics.
    3. Holmes, Mark J. & Otero, Jesús & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2015. "The expectations hypothesis and decoupling of short- and long-term US interest rates: A pairwise approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 301-313.
    4. Vides, José Carlos & Golpe, Antonio A. & Iglesias, Jesús, 2020. "The EHTS and the persistence in the spread reconsidered. A fractional cointegration approach," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 124-137.
    5. Vides, José Carlos & Golpe, Antonio A. & Iglesias, Jesús, 2021. "The impact of the term spread in US monetary policy from 1870 to 2013," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 230-251.

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    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • 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

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