As short-term interest rates have declined over the past several years, investors have increasingly sought higher yielding investment vehicles. The index amortizing rate (IAR) swap is one of several new instruments that have been developed in response to this investor demand for yield...

Index amortizing rate (IAR) swaps have proved difficult to price because of the complexity of their embedded options. Since these options depend on the path of interest rates, pricing requires a model of interest rate movements. This article uses a simple interest rate model to illustrate the...

Real interest rates on long-term financial assets play a central role in linking financial markets to the economy at large. Over the last fifteen years, these rates have risen steadily in the United States and some key foreign countries. The authors consider long-term forces contributing to this...

World financial markets have become substantially integrated over the last two decades. Contrary to widespread expectations, however, this integration has not led to any greater convergence of interest rates across countries. This article examines why convergence has not occurred and more...

U.S. corporations have floated stocks and bonds in unprecedented amounts in the last year. How much have corporate treasurers reduced their firms' interest payments through such refinancing? After assessing the motives for refinancing, the authors estimate the aggregate interest savings achieved...

This study shows that in a standard one-sector neoclassical growth model, in which money is introduced with a cash-in-advance constraint, zero nominal interest rates are optimal. Milton Friedman argued in 1969 that zero nominal rates are necessary for efficient resource allocation. This study...

In this article, I suggest that incomplete markets and transaction costs are crucial for explaining the high equity premium and the low risk-free rate. I first demonstrate the failure of the complete frictionless markets model in explaining these return puzzles and then show how introducing...

This study describes and reconciles two common, seemingly contradictory views about a key monetary policy relationship: that between money and interest rates. Data since 1960 for about 40 countries support the Fisher equation view, that these variables are positively related. But studies taking...