IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v29y2005i10p2541-2556.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tests of the expectations hypothesis: Resolving the anomalies when the short-term rate is the federal funds rate

Author

Listed:
  • Thornton, Daniel L.

Abstract

The expectations hypothesis (EH) of the term structure plays an important role in the analysis of monetary policy, where shorter-term rates are assumed to be determined by the market?s expectation for the overnight federal funds rate. With two exceptions, tests using the effective federal funds rate as the short-term rate easily reject the EH. These exceptions are when the EH is tested over the nonborrowed reserve targeting period and when the test is performed only using data for settlement Wednesdays?the last day of bank?s reserve maintenance period. This paper argues that these exceptions are anomalous: In the former case, the failure to reject the EH occurs when economic analysis suggests that the market should be less able to forecast the federal funds rate. In the latter case, it occurs when there are sharp spikes in the funds rate that cannot improve materially the market?s ability to forecast the funds rate. Additional analysis shows that these anomalous results are a consequence of the procedure used to test the EH.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Thornton, Daniel L., 2005. "Tests of the expectations hypothesis: Resolving the anomalies when the short-term rate is the federal funds rate," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 2541-2556, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:29:y:2005:i:10:p:2541-2556
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-4266(04)00243-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Daniel L. Thornton, 2005. "When did the FOMC begin targeting the federal funds rate? what the verbatim transcripts tell us," Working Papers 2004-015, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    3. Froot, Kenneth A, 1989. " New Hope for the Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(2), pages 283-305, June.
    4. Geert Bekaert & Robert J. Hodrick, 2001. "Expectations Hypotheses Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1357-1394, August.
    5. Kuttner, Kenneth N., 2001. "Monetary policy surprises and interest rates: Evidence from the Fed funds futures market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 523-544, June.
    6. Simon, David P, 1990. "Expectations and the Treasury Bill-Federal Funds Rate Spread over Recent Monetary Policy Regimes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 467-477, June.
    7. Feinman, Joshua N, 1993. "Estimating the Open Market Desk's Daily Reaction Function," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 25(2), pages 231-247, May.
    8. McCallum, Bennett T., 1994. "A reconsideration of the uncovered interest parity relationship," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 105-132, February.
    9. Kool, Clemens J. M. & Thornton, Daniel L., 2004. "A note on the expectations hypothesis at the founding of the Fed," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 3055-3068, December.
    10. N. Gregory Mankiw & Jeffrey A. Miron, 1986. "The Changing Behavior of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 211-228.
    11. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "The information in the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 509-528, December.
    12. William Poole & Robert Rasche, 2000. "Perfecting the Market's Knowledge of Monetary Policy," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 18(2), pages 255-298, December.
    13. Michael Woodford, 2001. "Monetary policy in the information economy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 297-370.
    14. Hsu, Chiente & Kugler, Peter, 1997. "The Revival of the Expectations Hypothesis of the US Term Structure of Interest Rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 115-120, August.
    15. John B. Taylor, 2001. "Expectations, open market operations, and changes in the federal funds rate," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 83(Jul), pages 33-58.
    16. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1991. "Yield Spreads and Interest Rate Movements: A Bird's Eye View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 495-514.
    17. Gregory R. Duffee, 2002. "Term Premia and Interest Rate Forecasts in Affine Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 405-443, February.
    18. Diebold, Francis X. & Li, Canlin, 2006. "Forecasting the term structure of government bond yields," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 337-364, February.
    19. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    20. Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2002. "Term structure evidence on interest rate smoothing and monetary policy inertia," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1161-1187, September.
    21. Campbell, John Y & Shiller, Robert J, 1987. "Cointegration and Tests of Present Value Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1062-1088, October.
    22. Perron, P, 1993. "Erratum [The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock and the Unit Root Hypothesis]," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 248-249, January.
    23. Rudebusch, Glenn D., 1995. "Federal Reserve interest rate targeting, rational expectations, and the term structure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 245-274, April.
    24. Daniel L. Thornton, 1988. "The borrowed-reserves operating procedures: theory and evidence," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jan, pages 30-54.
    25. Goodfriend, Marvin, 1991. "Interest rates and the conduct of monetary policy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 7-30, January.
    26. Daniel L. Thornton, 2001. "Identifying the liquidity effect at the daily frequency," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 83(Jul), pages 59-82.
    27. Frederick R. Macaulay, 1938. "Some Theoretical Problems Suggested by the Movements of Interest Rates, Bond Yields and Stock Prices in the United States since 1856," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number maca38-1, March.
    28. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    29. Roberds, William & Runkle, David & Whiteman, Charles H, 1996. "A Daily View of Yield Spreads and Short-Term Interest Rate Movements," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(1), pages 34-53, February.
    30. William Poole & Robert H. Rasche & Daniel L. Thornton, 2002. "Market anticipations of monetary policy actions," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(Jul), pages 65-94.
    31. Robert J. Shiller & John Y. Campbell & Kermit L. Schoenholtz, 1983. "Forward Rates and Future Policy: Interpreting the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 14(1), pages 173-224.
    32. Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1988. " The Predictive Power of the Term Structure during Recent Monetary Regimes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(2), pages 339-356, June.
    33. Ann-Marie Meulendyke, 1998. "U.S. monetary policy and financial markets," Monograph, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, number 1998mpaf.
    34. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Bertola, Giuseppe & Foresi, Silverio, 1997. "A model of target changes and the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 223-249, July.
    35. Thornton, Daniel L., 2004. "The Fed and short-term rates: Is it open market operations, open mouth operations or interest rate smoothing?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 475-498, March.
    36. Cook, Timothy & Hahn, Thomas, 1989. "The effect of changes in the federal funds rate target on market interest rates in the 1970s," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 331-351, November.
    37. Poole, William, 1991. "Interest rates and the conduct of monetary policy : A comment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 31-39, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel L. Thornton, 2007. "The daily and policy-relevant liquidity effects," Working Papers 2007-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    2. Thornton, Daniel L., 2014. "Monetary policy: Why money matters (and interest rates don’t)," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 202-213.
    3. Clemens J. M. Kool & Daniel L. Thornton, 2015. "How Effective Is Central Bank Forward Guidance?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 97(4), pages 303-322.
    4. Daniel L. Thornton, 2018. "Greenspan's Conundrum and the Fed's Ability to Affect Long‐Term Yields," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(2-3), pages 513-543, March.
    5. Della Corte, Pasquale & Sarno, Lucio & Thornton, Daniel L., 2008. "The expectation hypothesis of the term structure of very short-term rates: Statistical tests and economic value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 158-174, July.
    6. M. Hadzi-Vaskov & C.J.M. Kool, 2006. "The Importance of Interest Rate Volatility in Empirical Tests of Uncovered Interest Parity," Working Papers 06-16, Utrecht School of Economics.
    7. Morten L. Bech & Elizabeth C. Klee & Viktors Stebunovs, 2012. "Arbitrage, liquidity and exit: the repo and federal funds markets before, during, and emerging from the financial crisis," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-21, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Matteo Modena, 2008. "The Term Structure and the Expectations Hypothesis: a Threshold Model," Working Papers 2008_36, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    9. Daniel L. Thornton, 2005. "Predictions of short-term rates and the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates," Working Papers 2004-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. Samih Antoine Azar, 2018. "Forward Unbiasedness in the Short End of the Interest Rate Market," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(2), pages 70-78, February.
    11. João F. Caldeira, 2020. "Investigating the expectation hypothesis and the risk premium dynamics: new evidence for Brazil," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 395-412, July.
    12. Go Tamakoshi & Shigeyuki Hamori, 2014. "Nonlinear adjustment between the Eonia and Euribor rates: a two-regime threshold cointegration analysis," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 139-143, January.
    13. 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.
    14. Daniel L. Thornton, 2012. "Evidence on the portfolio balance channel of quantitative easing," Working Papers 2012-015, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    15. Alexandros Kontonikas & Charles Nolan & Zivile Zekaite & Michael Lamla, 2019. "Treasuries variance decomposition and the impact of monetary policy," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 1506-1519, October.
    16. Alexandros Kontonikas & Charles Nolan & Zivile Zekaite, 2015. "Always and Everywhere Inflation? Treasuries Variance Decomposition and the Impact of Monetary Policy," Working Papers 2015_17, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    17. Lizardo Radhames A. & Mollick Andre Varella, 2011. "The Impact of Chinese Purchases of U.S. Government Debt on the Treasury Yield Curve," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 11(4), pages 1-23, December.
    18. Daniel L. Thornton, 2003. "Monetary policy transparency: transparent about what?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(5), pages 478-497, September.
    19. Guidolin, Massimo & Thornton, Daniel L., 2018. "Predictions of short-term rates and the expectations hypothesis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 636-664.
    20. Alain Durré, 2006. "The Liquidity Premium in the Money Market: A Comparison of the German Mark Period and the Euro Area," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7, pages 163-187, May.
    21. Benjamin Tabak, 2009. "Testing the expectations hypothesis in the Brazilian term structure of interest rates: a cointegration analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(21), pages 2681-2689.
    22. Nicholas Addai Boamah, 2016. "Testing the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rate: the case of Ghana," Journal of African Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 1-15, January.
    23. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guidolin, Massimo & Thornton, Daniel L., 2018. "Predictions of short-term rates and the expectations hypothesis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 636-664.
    2. Thornton, Daniel L., 2006. "Tests of the Expectations Hypothesis: Resolving the Campbell-Shiller Paradox," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(2), pages 511-542, March.
    3. Sarno, Lucio & Thornton, Daniel L., 2003. "The dynamic relationship between the federal funds rate and the Treasury bill rate: An empirical investigation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1079-1110, June.
    4. M. Isabel Martínez-Serna & Eliseo Navarro-Arribas, 2002. "El modelo de McCallum. Evidencia empírica en la estructura temporal de los tipos de interés española," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 26(2), pages 323-357, May.
    5. Modena, Matteo, 2008. "The term structure and the expectations hypothesis: a threshold model," MPRA Paper 9611, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Rudebusch, Glenn D., 1995. "Federal Reserve interest rate targeting, rational expectations, and the term structure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 245-274, April.
    7. Daniel L. Thornton, 2005. "Predictions of short-term rates and the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates," Working Papers 2004-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    8. Daniel L. Thornton, 2000. "The relationship between the federal funds rate and the Fed's federal funds rate target: is it open market or open mouth operations?," Working Papers 1999-022, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    9. D H Kim, 2002. "Another look at yield spreads: The role of liquidity," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 04, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    10. D H Kim, 2003. "Another Look at Yield Spreads: The Role of Liquidity," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0306, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    11. Dong Heon Kim, 2008. "Another Look at Yield Spreads: The Role of Liquidity," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(4), pages 952-970, April.
    12. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Bertola, Giuseppe & Foresi, Silverio, 1997. "A model of target changes and the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 223-249, July.
    13. Thornton, Daniel L., 2004. "The Fed and short-term rates: Is it open market operations, open mouth operations or interest rate smoothing?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 475-498, March.
    14. Iichiro Uesugi & Guy M. Yamashiro, 2003. "On the Relationship Between the Very Short Forward and the Spot Interest Rate," Discussion papers 03013, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    15. Roberds, William & Whiteman, Charles H., 1999. "Endogenous term premia and anomalies in the term structure of interest rates: Explaining the predictability smile," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 555-580, December.
    16. Bulkley, George & Harris, Richard D.F. & Nawosah, Vivekanand, 2011. "Revisiting the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 1202-1212, May.
    17. Carriero, Andrea & Favero, Carlo A. & Kaminska, Iryna, 2006. "Financial factors, macroeconomic information and the Expectations Theory of the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 339-358.
    18. Thornton, Daniel L., 2014. "Monetary policy: Why money matters (and interest rates don’t)," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 202-213.
    19. Timothy Q. Cook & Thomas K. Hahn, 1990. "Interest rate expectations and the slope of the money market yield curve," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 76(Sep), pages 3-26.
    20. Sarno, Lucio & Thornton, Daniel L & Valente, Giorgio, 2005. "Federal Funds Rate Prediction," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(3), pages 449-471, June.

    More about this item

    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:eee:jbfina:v:29:y:2005:i:10:p:2541-2556. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    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.