Does the Failure of the Expectations Hypothesis Matter for Long-Term Investors

We consider the consumption and portfolio choice problem of a long-run investor when the term structure is affine and when the investor has access to nominal bonds and a stock portfolio. In the presence of unhedgeable inflation risk, there exist multiple pricing kernels that produce the same bond prices, but a unique pricing kernel equal to the marginal utility of the investor. We apply our method to a three-factor Gaussian model with a time-varying price of risk that captures the failure of the expectations hypothesis seen in the data. We extend this model to account for time-varying expected inflation, and estimate the model with both inflation and term structure data. The estimates imply that the bond portfolio for the long-run investor looks very different from the portfolio of a mean-variance optimizer. In particular, the desire to hedge changes in term premia generates large hedging demands for long-term bonds.

Does the Failure of the Expectations Hypothesis Matter for Long-Term Investors?

We solve the portfolio problem of a long-run investor when the term structure is Gaussian and when the investor has access to nominal bonds and stock. We apply our method to a three-factor model that captures the failure of the expectations hypothesis. We extend this model to account for time-varying expected inflation, and estimate the model with both inflation and term structure data. The estimates imply that the bond portfolio of a long-run investor looks very different from the portfolio of a mean-variance optimizer. In particular, time-varying term premia generate large hedging demands for long-term bonds

Does the Failure of the Expectations Hypothesis Matter for Long-Term Investors

We consider the consumption and portfolio choice problem of a long-run investor when the term structure is affine and when the investor has access to nominal bonds and a stock portfolio. In the presence of unhedgeable inflation risk, there exist multiple pricing kernels that produce the same bond prices, but a unique pricing kernel equal to the marginal utility of the investor. We apply our method to a three-factor Gaussian model with a time-varying price of risk that captures the failure of the expectations hypothesis seen in the data. We extend this model to account for time-varying expected inflation, and estimate the model with both inflation and term structure data. The estimates imply that the bond portfolio for the long-run investor looks very different from the portfolio of a mean-variance optimizer. In particular, the desire to hedge changes in term premia generates large hedging demands for long-term bonds

Does the Failure of the Expectations Hypothesis Matter for Long-Term Investors?

We solve the portfolio problem of a long-run investor when the term structure is Gaussian and when the investor has access to nominal bonds and stock. We apply our method to a three-factor model that captures the failure of the expectations hypothesis. We extend this model to account for time-varying expected inflation, and estimate the model with both inflation and term structure data. The estimates imply that the bond portfolio of a long-run investor looks very different from the portfolio of a mean-variance optimizer. In particular, time-varying term premia generate large hedging demands for long-term bonds

The Exact Discretisation of CARMA Models with Applications in Finance

The problem of estimating a continuous time model using discretely observed data is common in empirical finance. This paper uses recently developed methods of deriving the exact discrete representation for a continuous time ARMA (autoregressive moving average) system of order p, q to consider three popular models in finance. Our results for two benchmark term structure models show that higher order ARMA processes provide a significantly better fit than standard Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. We then explore present value models linking stock prices and dividends in the presence of cointegration. Our methods enable us to take account of the fact that the two variables are observed in fundamentally different ways by explicitly modelling the data as mixed stock-flow type, which we then compare with the (more common, but incorrect) treatment of dividends as a stock variable

Does the failure of the expectations hypothesis matter for long-term investors?

We consider the consumption and portfolio choice problem of a long-run investor when the term structure is affine and when the investor has access to nominal bonds and a stock portfolio. In the presence of unhedgeable inflation risk, there exist multiple pricing kernels that produce the same bond prices, but a unique pricing kernel equal to the marginal utility of the investor. We apply our method to a three-factor Gaussian model with a time-varying price of risk that captures the failure of the expectations hypothesis seen in the data. We extend this model to account for time-varying expected inflation, and estimate the model with both inflation and term structure data. The estimates imply that the bond portfolio for the long-run investor looks very different from the portfolio of a mean-variance optimizer. In particular, the desire to hedge changes in term premia generates large hedging demands for long-term bonds