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Interest Rate Skewness and Biased Beliefs

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  • Chernov, Mikhail
  • Bauer, Michael

Abstract

The conditional skewness of Treasury yields is an important indicator of the risks to the macroeconomic outlook. Positive skewness signals upside risk to interest rates during periods of accommodative monetary policy and an upward-sloping yield curve, and vice versa. Skewness has substantial predictive power for future bond excess returns, high-frequency interest rate changes around FOMC announcements, and survey forecast errors for interest rates. The estimated expectational errors, or biases in beliefs, are quantitatively important for statistical bond risk premia. These findings are consistent with a heterogeneous-beliefs model where one of the agents is wrong about consumption growth

Suggested Citation

  • Chernov, Mikhail & Bauer, Michael, 2021. "Interest Rate Skewness and Biased Beliefs," CEPR Discussion Papers 16274, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16274
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    2. Michael D. Bauer & Eric T. Swanson, 2023. "A Reassessment of Monetary Policy Surprises and High-Frequency Identification," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 87-155.
    3. Hilde C. Bjornland & Jamie L. Cross & Jonas Holz, 2025. "Re-visiting the Relationship Between Oil Prices and Monetary Policy," CAMA Working Papers 2025-19, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    4. Ying, Shan & Sheen, Jeffrey & Gu, Xin & Wang, Ben Zhe, 2025. "Does monetary policy uncertainty moderate the transmission of policy shocks to government bond yields?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Michael D. Bauer & Travis J. Berge & Giuseppe Fiori & Francesca Loria & Molin Zhong, 2025. "Accounting for Uncertainty and Risks in Monetary Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2025-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Guljanov, Gaygysyz & Mutschler, Willi & Trede, Mark, 2022. "Pruned Skewed Kalman Filter and Smoother: With Application to the Yield Curve," Dynare Working Papers 78, CEPREMAP.
    7. Matteo Foglia & Rangan Gupta & Petre Caraiani & Vincenzo Pacelli, 2025. "Time-Varying Spillover of Multi-Scale Positive and Negative Bubbles in Stock and Oil Markets," Working Papers 202534, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    8. Phillip An & Karlye Dilts Stedman & Amaze Lusompa, 2025. "How High Does High Frequency Need to Be? A Comparison of Daily and Intradaily Monetary Policy Surprises," Research Working Paper RWP 25-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    9. Sylvérie Herbert & Paul Hubert & Mathias Lé, 2025. "When does Monetary Policy Matter? Policy Stance vs. Term Premium News," Working papers 1017, Banque de France.
    10. De Santis, Roberto A. & Tornese, Tommaso, 2024. "US monetary policy is more powerful in low economic growth regimes," Working Paper Series 2919, European Central Bank.
    11. Onur Polat & Rangan Gupta & Riza Demirer & Elie Bouri, 2025. "Implied Skewness of the Treasury Yield: A New Predictor for Stock Market Bubbles," Working Papers 202539, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    12. Filippo Busetto, 2024. "Asymmetric expectations of monetary policy," Bank of England working papers 1058, Bank of England.
    13. Xinyang Li, 2025. "Tail risk and Flight-to-Safety," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(4), pages 386-410, July.
    14. Ricardo J. Caballero & Alp Simsek, 2022. "Monetary Policy with Opinionated Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(7), pages 2353-2392, July.
    15. Frédéric Vrins & Linqi Wang, 2023. "Asymmetric short-rate model without lower bound," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 279-295, February.
    16. Gergely Hudecz & Edmund Moshammer & Marco Onofri, 2024. "Option-implied bond spread risk," Working Papers 66, European Stability Mechanism, revised 25 Nov 2024.
    17. Camara, Santiago, 2025. "Spillovers of US interest rates: Monetary policy & information effects," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    18. Pin Wang & Guojing Wang & Yang Yang & Jing Yao, 2025. "Tail Conditional Expectation and Tail Variance for Extended Generalized Skew-Elliptical Distributions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-24, September.
    19. Doshi, Hitesh & Jacobs, Kris & Liu, Rui, 2024. "Modeling volatility in dynamic term structure models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    20. Alistair Macaulay & Wenting Song, 2022. "Narrative-Driven Fluctuations in Sentiment: Evidence Linking Traditional and Social Media," Economics Series Working Papers 973, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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