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How You Estimate The Yield Curve Matters!, Luiz Paulo Fichtner, Pedro Santa-Clara Dec 2012

How You Estimate The Yield Curve Matters!, Luiz Paulo Fichtner, Pedro Santa-Clara

Luiz Paulo Fichtner

We evaluate a two-factor Cox et al. (1985a,b) model using Euribor zero-coupon yields. We estimate this model using a state-space framework, where we sum a log-likelihood function of the state vector dynamics to a log-likelihood function of cross-section pricing errors. We introduce a likelihood-scaling weight in the joint log-likelihood function and show that there is a tradeoff in how one estimates a yield curve. Giving more weight to the cross-section of pricing errors improves the fitting and forecasting of Euribor yields, while giving more weight to the log-likelihood function of the state vector dynamics improves interest rate derivative pricing at …


Out-Of-Sample Predictability Of Bond Returns, Luiz Paulo Fichtner, Pedro Santa-Clara Dec 2012

Out-Of-Sample Predictability Of Bond Returns, Luiz Paulo Fichtner, Pedro Santa-Clara

Luiz Paulo Fichtner

We test the out-of-sample predictive power for one-year bond excess returns for a vari- ety of models that have been proposed in the literature. We find that these models perform well in sample, but have worse out-of-sample performance than the historical sample mean. We write the one-year excess return on a n-maturity bond at time t + 1 as the difference between n times the n-maturity bond yield at time t, and the sum of n − 1 times the (n − 1)-maturity bond yield at time t + 1 and the one-year bond yield at time t. Instead of …