IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/3207699.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stock Returns and the Term Structure

Author

Listed:
  • Campbell, John

Abstract

In monthly U.S. data for 1959–1979 and 1979–1983, the state of the term structure of interest rates predicts excess stock returns, as well as excess returns on bills and bonds. This paper documents this fact and uses it to examine some simple asset pricing models. In 1959–1979, the data strongly reject a single-latent-variable specification of predictable excess returns. There is considerable evidence that conditional variances of excess returns change through time, but the relationship between conditional mean and conditional variance is reliably positive only at the short end of the term structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Campbell, John, 1987. "Stock Returns and the Term Structure," Scholarly Articles 3207699, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:3207699
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3207699/campbell_stockreturns.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell, 1986. "Bond and Stock Returns in a Simple Exchange Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 785-803.
    2. Breeden, Douglas T., 1979. "An intertemporal asset pricing model with stochastic consumption and investment opportunities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 265-296, September.
    3. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    4. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    5. Huizinga, John & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1984. "Inflation and Real Interest Rates on Assets with Different Risk Characteristics," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 699-712, July.
    6. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Term premiums in bond returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 529-546, December.
    7. N. Gregory Mankiw & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Do Long-Term Interest Rates Overreact to Short-Term Interest Rates?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(1), pages 223-248.
    8. Cox, John C & Ingersoll, Jonathan E, Jr & Ross, Stephen A, 1981. "A Re-examination of Traditional Hypotheses about the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 769-799, September.
    9. Campbell, John Y, 1986. "A Defense of Traditional Hypotheses about the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 183-193, March.
    10. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    11. Pindyck, Robert S, 1984. "Risk, Inflation, and the Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 335-351, June.
    12. Lars Peter Hansen & Robert J. Hodrick, 1983. "Risk Averse Speculation in the Forward Foreign Exchange Market: An Econometric Analysis of Linear Models," NBER Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and International Macroeconomics, pages 113-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Schwert, G William, 1981. "The Adjustment of Stock Prices to Information about Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(1), pages 15-29, March.
    14. Campbell, John Y & Shiller, Robert J, 1984. "A Simple Account of the Behavior of Long-Term Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 44-48, May.
    15. Startz, Richard, 1982. "Do forecast errors or term premia really make the difference between long and short rates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 323-329, November.
    16. Fama, Eugene F, 1981. "Stock Returns, Real Activity, Inflation, and Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 545-565, September.
    17. LeRoy, Stephen F., 1982. "Risk-aversion and the term structure of real interest rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 355-361.
    18. Fama, Eugene F. & Schwert, G. William, 1977. "Asset returns and inflation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 115-146, November.
    19. Fama, Eugene F, 1976. "Inflation Uncertainty and Expected Returns on Treasury Bills," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(3), pages 427-448, June.
    20. Robert J. Shiller & John Y. Campbell & Kermit L. Schoenholtz, 1983. "Forward Rates and Future Policy: Interpreting the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 14(1), pages 173-224.
    21. Merton, Robert C., 1980. "On estimating the expected return on the market : An exploratory investigation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 323-361, December.
    22. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "The information in the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 509-528, December.
    23. LeRoy, Stephen F, 1982. "Expectations Models of Asset Prices: A Survey of Theory," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 37(1), pages 185-217, March.
    24. Constantinides, George M., 1980. "Admissible uncertainty in the intertemporal asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 71-86, March.
    25. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1269-1286, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:adr:anecst:y:1998:i:52:p:01 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Wayne E. Ferson & Campbell R. Harvey, 1999. "Conditioning Variables and the Cross Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1325-1360, August.
    3. Wayne E. Ferson & Ravi Jagannathan, 1996. "Econometric evaluation of asset pricing models," Staff Report 206, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. Shiller, Robert J. & Huston McCulloch, J., 1990. "The term structure of interest rates," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 627-722, Elsevier.
    5. Tim Bollerslev & Ray Y. Chou & Narayanan Jayaraman & Kenneth F. Kroner - L, 1991. "es modéles ARCH en finance : un point sur la théorie et les résultats empiriques," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 24, pages 1-59.
    6. Shea, Gary S, 1992. "Benchmarking the Expectations Hypothesis of the Interest-Rate Term Structure: An Analysis of Cointegration Vectors," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 347-366, July.
    7. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1991. "Yield Spreads and Interest Rate Movements: A Bird's Eye View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 495-514.
    8. Éric Jondeau & Roland Ricart, 1998. "La théorie des anticipations de la structure par terme : test à partir de titres publics français," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 52, pages 1-22.
    9. Pagan, Adrian, 1996. "The econometrics of financial markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 15-102, May.
    10. Cochrane, John H., 2005. "Financial Markets and the Real Economy," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 1-101, July.
    11. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    12. Timothy Q. Cook & Thomas K. Hahn, 1990. "Interest rate expectations and the slope of the money market yield curve," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 76(Sep), pages 3-26.
    13. Warren J. Tease, 1988. "The Expectations Theory of the Term Structure of Interest Rates in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 64(2), pages 120-127, June.
    14. Bollerslev, Tim & Chou, Ray Y. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1992. "ARCH modeling in finance : A review of the theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 5-59.
    15. John Y. Campbell & Yeung Lewis Chanb & M. Viceira, 2013. "A multivariate model of strategic asset allocation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part II, chapter 39, pages 809-848, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Campbell, John Y. & Clarida, Richard H., 1987. "The term structure of euromarket interest rates : An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 25-44, January.
    17. Dunn, Kenneth B. & Singleton, Kenneth J., 1986. "Modeling the term structure of interest rates under non-separable utility and durability of goods," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 27-55, September.
    18. Seppala, Juha, 2004. "The term structure of real interest rates: theory and evidence from UK index-linked bonds," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1509-1549, October.
    19. Tzavalis, Elias & Wickens, Michael R, 1997. "Explaining the Failures of the Term Spread Models of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(3), pages 364-380, August.
    20. Zhou, Guofu, 1995. "Small sample rank tests with applications to asset pricing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 71-93, March.
    21. Campbell, John Y & Ammer, John, 1993. "What Moves the Stock and Bond Markets? A Variance Decomposition for Long-Term Asset Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-37, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:3207699. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.