IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbb/reswpp/201403-254.html

Information in the yield curve: A Macro-Finance approach

Author

Listed:
  • Hans Dewachter

    (National Bank of Belgium, Research Department
    Center for Economic Studies, University of Leuven
    CESifo)

  • Leonardo Iania

    (National Bank of Belgium, Research Department
    Louvain School of Management (UCL))

  • Marco Lyrio

    (Insper Institute of Education and Research)

Abstract

We use a macro-finance model, incorporating macroeconomic and financial factors, to study the term premium in the U.S. bond market. Estimating the model using Bayesian techniques, we find that a single factor explains most of the variation in bond risk premiums. Furthermore, the model-implied risk premiums account for up to 40% of the variability of one- and two-year excess returns. Using the model to decompose yield spreads into an expectations and a term premium component, we find that, although this decomposition does not seem important to forecast economic activity, it is crucial to forecast inflation for most forecasting horizons.

Suggested Citation

  • Hans Dewachter & Leonardo Iania & Marco Lyrio, 2014. "Information in the yield curve: A Macro-Finance approach," Working Paper Research 254, National Bank of Belgium.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbb:reswpp:201403-254
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/publications/wp/wp254en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. B. De Backer & M. Deroose & Ch. Van Nieuwenhuyze, 2019. "Is a recession imminent? The signal of the yield curve," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 69-93, June.
    2. Antonio Gargano & Davide Pettenuzzo & Allan Timmermann, 2019. "Bond Return Predictability: Economic Value and Links to the Macroeconomy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 508-540, February.
    3. Brand, Claus & Goy, Gavin W & Lemke, Wolfgang, 2020. "Natural rate chimera and bond pricing reality," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224546, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Ireland, Peter N., 2015. "Monetary policy, bond risk premia, and the economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 124-140.
    5. Etienne Vaccaro-Grange, 2019. "Quantitative Easing and the Term Premium as a Monetary Policy Instrument," AMSE Working Papers 1932, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    6. Morell, Joseph, 2018. "The decline in the predictive power of the US term spread: A structural interpretation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 314-331.
    7. Bouri, Elie & Demirer, Riza & Gupta, Rangan & Wohar, Mark E., 2021. "Gold, platinum and the predictability of bond risk premia," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    8. Yun, Jaeho, 2019. "Bond risk premia in a small open economy with volatile capital flows: The case of Korea," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 223-243.
    9. Brand, Claus & Goy, Gavin W & Lemke, Wolfgang, 2020. "Natural rate chimera and bond pricing reality," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224546, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. 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).
    11. Ethan Struby, 2018. "Macroeconomic Disagreement in Treasury Yields," Working Papers 2018-04, Carleton College, Department of Economics.
    12. Jing Yuan & Yan Peng & Tsun Zongwu Cai & Zhengyi Zhang, 2022. "A Quantitative Evaluation of Interest Rate Liberalization Reform in China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 23(2), pages 197-221, November.
    13. 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).
    14. 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.
    15. Argyropoulos, Efthymios & Tzavalis, Elias, 2016. "Forecasting economic activity from yield curve factors," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 293-311.
    16. DINGA Emil, 2018. "On An Increasingly Yield Curve Of Knowledge," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 13(3), pages 13-25, December.
    17. Jing Yuan & Yan Peng & Zongwu Cai & Zhengyi Zhang, 2022. "A Quantitative Evaluation of Interest Rate Liberalization Reform in China," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 202214, University of Kansas, Department of Economics.
    18. Lin-Yee Hin & Nikolai Dokuchaev, 2016. "Short Rate Forecasting Based On The Inference From The Cir Model For Multiple Yield Curve Dynamics," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(01), pages 1-33, March.
    19. Konstantinos Bisiotis & Stelios Psarakis & Athanasios N. Yannacopoulos, 2022. "Affine Term Structure Models: Applications in Portfolio Optimization and Change Point Detection," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(21), pages 1-33, November.
    20. Ronald Ravinesh Kumar & Peter Josef Stauvermann & Hang Thi Thu Vu, 2021. "The Relationship between Yield Curve and Economic Activity: An Analysis of G7 Countries," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-23, February.
    21. Tosapol Apaitan, 2015. "Extracting Market Inflation Expectations: A Semi-structural Macro-finance Term Structure Model," PIER Discussion Papers 4, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    22. Byrne, Joseph P. & Cao, Shuo & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2017. "Forecasting the term structure of government bond yields in unstable environments," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 209-225.
    23. Christos Ioannidis & Kook Ka, 2021. "Economic Policy Uncertainty and Bond Risk Premia," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(6), pages 1479-1522, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:nbb:reswpp:201403-254. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bnbgvbe.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.