Yield curve models within the Nelson and Siegel (hereafter NS) class have proven very popular in finance and macrofinance, but they lack a theoretical foundation. In this article, I show how the Level, Slope, and Curvature components common to all NS models arise explicitly from low-order Taylor...

Yield curve models within the popular Nelson and Siegel (hereafter NS) class are shown to arise from a formal low-order Taylor approximation to the generic Gaussian affine term structure model. That theoretical foundation provides an assurance that NS models correspond to a well-accepted...

This paper quantifies the impact of monetary policy shocks on asset markets in the United States and gauges the usefulness of a shadow short rate as a measure of conventional and unconventional monetary policy shocks. Monetary policy surprises are found to have had a larger impact on asset...

I introduce the essential aspects of the eigensystem vector autoregression (EVAR), which allows VARs to be specified and estimated directly in terms of their eigensystem, using univariate examples for clarity. The EVAR guarantees non-explosive dynamics and, if included, non-redundant...

Faster extended Kalman filter estimations of zero lower bound models of the term structure are possible if the analytic properties of the Jacobian matrix for the measurement equation are exploited. I show that such results are straighforward to incorporate, at least in Monte-Carlo-based...

The Black framework offers a theoretically appealing way to model the term structure and gauge the stance of monetary policy when the zero lower bound of interest rates becomes constraining, but it is time consuming to apply using standard numerical methods. I outline a faster Monte Carlo...

When nominal interest rates are near their zero lower bound (ZLB), as in many developed economies at the time of writing, it is theoretically untenable to apply the popular class of Gaussian affine term structure models (GATSMs) given their inherent material probabilities of negative interest...