IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Why are excess returns on China’s Treasury bonds so predictable? The role of the monetary system

Author Info

  • Fan, Longzhen
  • Tian, Shu
  • Zhang, Chu
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    It is well documented that the time-varying bond excess returns can be explained by predetermined variables such as information in the term structure and macro economic variables. Recent studies suggest that demand and supply of bonds influence bond excess returns. We extend the literature and find that monetary system attributes affect return dynamics in the bond market. By introducing a theoretical model to forecast excess returns on Treasury bonds in the context of China’s unique monetary system, this paper attributes the predicted components of bond excess returns mainly to the inflexible term structures of official interest rates set by China’s central bank.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426611002172
    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 under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

    Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Banking & Finance.

    Volume (Year): 36 (2012)
    Issue (Month): 1 ()
    Pages: 239-248

    as
    in new window

    Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:36:y:2012:i:1:p:239-248
    Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf

    Keywords: Bond excess return; Monetary system; Official rate; Inflation rate;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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.:

    as in new window
    1. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, 02.
    2. Gregory R. Duffee, 1994. "Idiosyncratic variation of Treasury bill yields," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 94-28, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Michael F. Gallmeyer & Burton Hollifield, 2005. "Taylor Rules, McCallum Rules and the Term Structure of Interest Rates," 2005 Meeting Papers 676, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Fan, Longzhen & Johansson, Anders C., 2009. "China'S Official Rates And Bond Yields," Working Paper Series 2009-3, China Economic Research Center, Stockholm School of Economics.
    5. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert, 2004. "The Term Structure of Real Rates and Expected Inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4518, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1991. "Yield Spreads and Interest Rate Movements: A Bird's Eye View," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 495-514.
    7. John H. Cochrane & Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Risk Premia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 138-160, March.
    8. Fama, Eugene F & Bliss, Robert R, 1987. "The Information in Long-Maturity Forward Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 680-92, September.
    9. Michael J. Fleming, 2002. "Are larger Treasury issues more liquid? Evidence from bill reopenings," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 707-739.
    10. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Erratum to "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?"," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1849-1849, October.
    11. Joyce, Michael A.S. & Lildholdt, Peter & Sorensen, Steffen, 2010. "Extracting inflation expectations and inflation risk premia from the term structure: A joint model of the UK nominal and real yield curves," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 281-294, February.
    12. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    13. Sydeny C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2005. "Macro Factors in Bond Risk Premia," NBER Working Papers 11703, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Robin Greenwood & Dimitri Vayanos, 2010. "Price Pressure in the Government Bond Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 585-90, May.
    15. Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Yields and the Federal Reserve," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 311-344, April.
    16. Greg Duffee, 2010. "Sharpe ratios in term structure models," Economics Working Paper Archive 575, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    17. Andersson, Malin & Dillen, Hans & Sellin, Peter, 2006. "Monetary policy signaling and movements in the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1815-1855, November.
    18. Kessler, Stephan & Scherer, Bernd, 2009. "Varying risk premia in international bond markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1361-1375, August.
    19. Sekkel, Rodrigo, 2011. "International evidence on bond risk premia," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 174-181, January.
    20. Haizhou Huang & Ning Zhu, 2007. "The Chinese Bond Market: Historical Lessons, Present Challenges and Future Perspectives," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2582, Yale School of Management, revised 21 Sep 2009.
    21. Heber Farnsworth & Richard Bass, 2003. "The Term Structure with Semi-credible Targeting," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 839-866, 04.
    22. Lekkos, Ilias & Milas, Costas, 2004. "Time-varying excess returns on UK government bonds: A non-linear approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 45-62, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

    as in new window


    Cited by:

    1. Hong, Yongmiao & Lin, Hai & Wu, Chunchi, 2012. "Are corporate bond market returns predictable?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2216-2232.
    2. Löchel, H. & Packham, N. & Walisch, F., 2016. "Determinants of the onshore and offshore Chinese government yield curves," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 77-93.
    3. repec:wyi:journl:002156 is not listed on IDEAS

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Access and download statistics

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:36:y:2012:i:1:p:239-248. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Shamier, Wendy)

    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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

    This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.