Portfolio Choice with Stochastic Interest Rates and Learning About Stock Return Predictability

The problem of optimal wealth allocation is solved under the assumptions that interest rates are stochastic and stock returns are predictable with observed and unobserved factors. The stock risk premium is taken to be an affine function of the predictive variables and the stock return volatility is assumed to depend on the observed factor. The latent factor is estimated based on the observations. It is shown that the stock return predictability can significantly impact the optimal bond portfolio. The welfare loss from ignoring learning can be considerable