The real interest rate gap or IRG - the gap between the short term real interest rate and its "natural" level - is a theoretical concept that has attracted much attention in central banks in recent years. This paper aims at clarifying its practical relevance for monetary policy in real time. For...

This paper develops an arbitrage-free affine term structure model of potentially defaultable sovereign bonds to model a cross-section of eight euro area government bond yield curves since January 1999. The existence of a common monetary policy under European Monetary Union determines the short...

This paper develops an arbitrage-free affine term structure model of potentially defaultable sovereign bonds to model a cross-section of eight euro area government bond yield curves since January 1999. The existence of a common monetary policy under European Monetary Union determines the short...

This article looks at the factors explaining the level of US and European long-term interest rates between 1986 and 2005. We begin by selecting the structural determinants of long-term interest rates, dealing with the US and European cases separately. However, a univariate framework cannot...

Risk aversion and uncertainty are often both at play in market price determination, but it is empirically challenging to disentangle one from the other. In this paper we set up a theoretical model particularly suited for opaque over-the-counter markets that is shown to be empirically tractable....