We explore the macro/finance interface in the context of equity markets. In particular, using half a century of Livingston expected business conditions data we characterize directly the impact of expected business conditions on expected excess stock returns. Expected business conditions...

We take a simple time-series approach to modeling and forecasting daily average temperature in U.S. cities, and we inquire systematically as to whether it may prove useful from the vantage point of participants in the weather derivatives market. The answer is, perhaps surprisingly, yes....

This paper develops a method for quantitatively and qualitatively assessing the adequacy of the normality assumption in regime switching models. A formal test that extends Jarque and Bera’s (1982) normality test to regime switching settings is proposed. Quasi maximum likelihood estimation of...

Santa-Clara and Valkanov (2003) document that excess returns on the stock market are puzzlingly higher under Democratic presidential administrations. We examine whether differences in economic fundamentals can account for this presidential puzzle. We find that the role for fundamentals crucially...

We offer retrospective and prospective assessments of the Diebold-Yilmaz connectedness research program, combined with personal recollections of its development. Its centerpiece in many respects is Diebold and Yilmaz (2014), around which our discussion is organized.

Using a generalized vector autoregressive framework in which forecast-error variance decompositions are invariant to variable ordering, we propose measures of both total and directional volatility spillovers. We use our methods to characterize daily volatility spillovers across U.S. stock, bond,...

We extend the important idea of range-based volatility estimation to the multivariate case. In particular, we propose a range-based covariance estimator that is motivated by financial economic considerations (the absence of arbitrage), in addition to statistical considerations. We show that,...

We consider three sets of phenomena that feature prominently - and separately - in the financial economics literature: conditional mean dependence (or lack thereof) in asset returns, dependence (and hence forecastability) in asset return signs, and dependence (and hence forecastability) in asset...

Despite powerful advances in yield curve modeling in the last twenty years, comparatively little attention has been paid to the key practical problem of forecasting the yield curve. In this paper we do so. We use neither the no-arbitrage approach, which focuses on accurately fitting the cross...

A large literature over several decades reveals both extensive concern with the question of time-varying betas and an emerging consensus that betas are in fact time-varying, leading to the prominence of the conditional CAPM. Set against that background, we assess the dynamics in realized betas,...