IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2007-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A closer look at the sensitivity puzzle: the sensitivity of expected future short rates and term premia to macroeconomic news

Author

Listed:
  • Meredith J. Beechey

Abstract

Nominal forward rates are sensitive at surprisingly long horizons to macroeconomic news and monetary-policy surprises. This paper takes advantage of affine term-structure modelling to demonstrate that movements in term premia, not expected future short rates, account for most of the reaction of forward rates at long horizons. Specifically, term premia account for about three quarters of the reaction of nominal forward rates 10 to 15 years hence to the surprise component of numerous macroeconomic news announcements. This has strong implications for the interpretation of interest-rate sensitivity. Contrary to some recent conjectures, long-horizon expectations of the level of inflation and real rates appear reasonably well anchored in the United States, but the associated term premia are quite variable.

Suggested Citation

  • Meredith J. Beechey, 2006. "A closer look at the sensitivity puzzle: the sensitivity of expected future short rates and term premia to macroeconomic news," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-06, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2007-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2007/200706/200706abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2007/200706/200706pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Frederic S. Mishkin & Niklas J. Westelius, 2008. "Inflation Band Targeting and Optimal Inflation Contracts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(4), pages 557-582, June.
    3. John H. Cochrane & Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Risk Premia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 138-160, March.
    4. Kim, Don H. & Orphanides, Athanasios, 2012. "Term Structure Estimation with Survey Data on Interest Rate Forecasts," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 241-272, February.
    5. Don H. Kim & Jonathan H. Wright, 2005. "An arbitrage-free three-factor term structure model and the recent behavior of long-term yields and distant-horizon forward rates," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-33, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. 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.
    7. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian P. Sack & Eric T. Swanson, 2003. "The excess sensitivity of long-term interest rates: evidence and implications for macroeconomic models," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    8. Diebold, Francis X. & Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Borag[caron]an Aruoba, S., 2006. "The macroeconomy and the yield curve: a dynamic latent factor approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 309-338.
    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. Michael D. Bauer, 2018. "Restrictions on Risk Prices in Dynamic Term Structure Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 196-211, April.
    2. Michelle L. Barnes & N. Aaron Pancost, 2010. "The sensitivity of long-term interest rates to economic news: comment," Working Papers 10-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    3. Berument, Hakan & Froyen, Richard, 2009. "Monetary policy and U.S. long-term interest rates: How close are the linkages?," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 34-50.
    4. David K. Backus & Jonathan H. Wright, 2007. "Cracking the Conundrum," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(1), pages 293-329.
    5. Jardet, Caroline & Monfort, Alain & Pegoraro, Fulvio, 2013. "No-arbitrage Near-Cointegrated VAR(p) term structure models, term premia and GDP growth," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 389-402.
    6. Matthew Raskin, 2013. "The effects of the Federal Reserve's date-based forward guidance," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2013-37, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Hausman, Joshua & Wongswan, Jon, 2011. "Global asset prices and FOMC announcements," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 547-571, April.
    8. Beechey, Meredith J. & Wright, Jonathan H., 2009. "The high-frequency impact of news on long-term yields and forward rates: Is it real?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 535-544, May.
    9. S. Rubun Dey & Christopher J. Neely, 2010. "A survey of announcement effects on foreign exchange returns," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(Sep), pages 417-464.
    10. Samuel Maurer & Joshua V. Rosenberg, 2008. "Signal or noise? Implications of the term premium for recession forecasting," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 14(Jul), pages 1-11.

    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. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Emanuel Moench, 2016. "The term structure of expectations and bond yields," Staff Reports 775, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    2. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Eric T. Swanson & Tao Wu, 2006. "The Bond Yield "Conundrum" from a Macro-Finance Perspective," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 24(S1), pages 83-109, December.
    3. Malik, Sheheryar & Meldrum, Andrew, 2016. "Evaluating the robustness of UK term structure decompositions using linear regression methods," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 85-102.
    4. Doshi, Hitesh & Jacobs, Kris & Liu, Rui, 2018. "Macroeconomic determinants of the term structure: Long-run and short-run dynamics," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 99-122.
    5. Argyropoulos Efthymios & Tzavalis Elias, 2015. "Term spread regressions of the rational expectations hypothesis of the term structure allowing for risk premium effects," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 49-70, February.
    6. 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.
    7. Luis Ceballos & Alberto Naudon & Damián Romero, 2016. "Nominal term structure and term premia: evidence from Chile," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(29), pages 2721-2735, June.
    8. Lloyd, Simon P., 2020. "Estimating nominal interest rate expectations: Overnight indexed swaps and the term structure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    9. Altavilla, Carlo & Giannone, Domenico & Modugno, Michele, 2017. "Low frequency effects of macroeconomic news on government bond yields," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 31-46.
    10. Munch Grønlund, Asger & Jørgensen, Kasper & Schupp, Fabian, 2024. "Measuring market-based core inflation expectations," Working Paper Series 2908, European Central Bank.
    11. Argyropoulos, Efthymios & Tzavalis, Elias, 2021. "The influence of real interest rates and risk premium effects on the ability of the nominal term structure to forecast inflation," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 785-796.
    12. P. Byrne, Joseph & Cao, Shuo & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2015. "Term Structure Dynamics, Macro-Finance Factors and Model Uncertainty," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-71, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Bauer, Michael D. & Neely, Christopher J., 2014. "International channels of the Fed's unconventional monetary policy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 24-46.
    14. Pericoli, Marcello & Taboga, Marco, 2012. "Bond risk premia, macroeconomic fundamentals and the exchange rate," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 42-65.
    15. Fausto Vieira & Fernando Chague, Marcelo Fernandes, 2016. "A dynamic Nelson-Siegel model with forward-looking indicators for the yield curve in the US," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2016_31, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    16. Michael Joyce & Jonathan Relleen & Steffen Sorensen, 2008. "Measuring monetary policy expectations from financial market instruments," Bank of England working papers 356, Bank of England.
    17. P. Byrne, Joseph & Cao, Shuo & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2015. "Term Structure Dynamics, Macro-Finance Factors and Model Uncertainty," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-71, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    18. Dewachter, Hans & Iania, Leonardo, 2011. "An Extended Macro-Finance Model with Financial Factors," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(6), pages 1893-1916, December.
    19. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert & Wei, Min, 2007. "Do macro variables, asset markets, or surveys forecast inflation better?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1163-1212, May.
    20. David K. Backus & Jonathan H. Wright, 2007. "Cracking the Conundrum," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(1), pages 293-329.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedgfe:2007-06. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    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.