The level of the social discount rate (SDR) is a crucial factor for evaluating the costs of climate change. We demonstrate that the equilibrium or steady-state real interest rate is the fundamental anchor for market-based SDRs. Much recent research has pointed to a decrease in the equilibrium...

Estimated monetary policy rules often appear to indicate a sluggish partial adjustment of the policy interest rate by the central bank. In fact, such evidence does not appear to be persuasive, since the illusion of monetary policy inertia may reflect spuriously omitted persistent influences on...

From a macroeconomic perspective, the short-term interest rate is a policy instrument under the direct control of the central bank. From a finance perspective, long rates are risk-adjusted averages of expected future short rates. Thus, as illustrated by much recent research, a joint...

This paper examines a recent shift in the dynamics of the term structure and interest rate risk. We first use standard yield-spread regressions to document such a shift in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. Over the pre- and post-shift subsamples, we then estimate dynamic, affine, no-arbitrage models,...

We estimate a model that summarizes the yield curve using latent factors (specifically, level, slope and curvature) and also includes observable macroeconomic variables (specifically, real activity, inflation, and the monetary policy instrument). Our goal is to provide a characterization of the...

This paper develops and estimates a macro-finance model that combines a canonical affine no-arbitrage finance specification of the term structure with standard macroeconomic aggregate relationships for output and inflation. From this new empirical formulation, we obtain several important...

We estimate a model with latent factors that summarize the yield curve (namely, level, slope, and curvature) as well as observable macroeconomic variables (real activity, inflation, and the stance of monetary policy). Our goal is to provide a characterization of the dynamic interactions between...

Climate change is a multidimensional shift. While much research has documented rising mean temperature levels, we also examine range-based measures of daily temperature volatility. Specifically, using data for select U.S. cities over the past half-century, we compare the evolving time series...

Previous research has emphasized the portfolio balance effects of Federal Reserve bond purchases, in which a reduced bond supply lowers term premia. In contrast, we find that such purchases have important signaling effects that lower expected future short-term interest rates. Our evidence comes...

The term premium on nominal long-term bonds in the standard dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model used in macroeconomics is far too small and stable relative to empirical measures obtained from the data - an example of the bond premium puzzle. However, in models of endowment...