Search Results
Working Paper
Too Good to Be True? Fallacies in Evaluating Risk Factor Models
This paper is concerned with statistical inference and model evaluation in possibly misspecified and unidentified linear asset-pricing models estimated by maximum likelihood and one-step generalized method of moments. Strikingly, when spurious factors (that is, factors that are uncorrelated with the returns on the test assets) are present, the models exhibit perfect fit, as measured by the squared correlation between the model's fitted expected returns and the average realized returns. Furthermore, factors that are spurious are selected with high probability, while factors that are useful are ...
Working Paper
On Model Aggregation and Forecast Combination
Policy makers express their views and decisions via the lens of a particular model or theory. But since any model is a highly stylized representation of the unknowable object of interest, all these models are inherently misspecified, and the resulting ambiguity injects uncertainty in the decision-making process. We argue that entropy-based aggregation is a convenient device to confront this uncertainty and summarize relevant information from a set of candidate models and forecasts. The proposed aggregation tends to robustify the decision-making process to various sources of risks and ...
Working Paper
General Aggregation of Misspecified Asset Pricing Models
This paper proposes an entropy-based approach for aggregating information from misspecified asset pricing models. The statistical paradigm is shifted away from parameter estimation of an optimally selected model to stochastic optimization based on a risk function of aggregation across models. The proposed method relaxes the perfect substitutability of the candidate models, which is implicitly embedded in the linear pooling procedures, and ensures that the aggregation weights are selected with a proper (Hellinger) distance measure that satisfies the triangle inequality. The empirical results ...
Discussion Paper
The Persistent Compression of the Breakeven Inflation Curve
Breakeven inflation, defined as the difference in the yield of a nominal Treasury security and a Treasury Inflation-Protected Security (TIPS) of the same maturity, is closely watched by market participants and policymakers alike. Breakeven inflation rates provide a signal about the expected path of inflation as perceived by market participants although they are also affected by risk and liquidity premia. In this post, we scrutinize the dynamics of breakeven inflation, highlighting some intriguing behavior which has persisted for a number of years and even through the pandemic. In particular, ...
Working Paper
Hedging and Pricing in Imperfect Markets under Non-Convexity
This paper proposes a robust approach to hedging and pricing in the presence of market imperfections such as market incompleteness and frictions. The generality of this framework allows us to conduct an in-depth theoretical analysis of hedging strategies for a wide family of risk measures and pricing rules, which are possibly non-convex. The practical implications of our proposed theoretical approach are illustrated with an application on hedging economic risk.
Report
A New Jackknife Variance Estimator for Time-Series and Panel Regressions
We introduce a new jackknife variance estimator for time-series and panel-data regressions. The novelty in our approach is that we first rotate the data using a particular choice of trigonometric basis functions. This rotation removes serial correlation in a broad class of time-series processes, including random walks, and enables the use of the conventional leave-one-out jackknife on the transformed space of the regressors and residuals. The procedure is tuning-parameter free and naturally adapts to the degree of persistence of the data. We prove the asymptotic validity of our variance ...
Working Paper
Multivariate return decomposition: theory and implications
In this paper, we propose a model based on multivariate decomposition of multiplicative?absolute values and signs?components of several returns. In the m-variate case, the marginals for the m absolute values and the binary marginals for the m directions are linked through a 2m-dimensional copula. The approach is detailed in the case of a bivariate decomposition. We outline the construction of the likelihood function and the computation of different conditional measures. The finite-sample properties of the maximum likelihood estimator are assessed by simulation. An application to predicting ...
Working Paper
A staggered pricing approach to modeling speculative storage: implications for commodity price dynamics
This paper embeds a staggered price feature into the standard speculative storage model of Deaton and Laroque (1996). Intermediate goods inventory speculators are added as an additional source of intertemporal linkage, which helps us to replicate the stylized facts of the observed commodity price dynamics. Incorporating this type of friction into the model is motivated by its ability to increase price stickiness which, gives rise to a higher degree of persistence in the first two conditional moments of commodity prices. The structural parameters of our model are estimated by the simulated ...
Working Paper
Misspecification-robust inference in linear asset pricing models with irrelevant risk factors
We show that in misspecified models with useless factors (for example, factors that are independent of the returns on the test assets), the standard inference procedures tend to erroneously conclude, with high probability, that these irrelevant factors are priced and the restrictions of the model hold. Our proposed model selection procedure, which is robust to useless factors and potential model misspecification, restores the standard inference and proves to be effective in eliminating factors that do not improve the model's pricing ability. The practical relevance of our analysis is ...
Working Paper
Monetary policy surprises, positions of traders, and changes in commodity futures prices
Using futures data for the period 1990?2008, this paper finds evidence that expansionary monetary policy surprises tend to increase crude and heating oil prices, and contractionary monetary policy shocks increase gold and platinum prices. Our analysis uncovers substantial heterogeneity in the magnitude of this response to positive and negative surprises across different commodities and commodity groups. The results also suggest that the positions of futures traders for the metals and energy commodities strongly respond to monetary policy shocks. The adjustment of the net long positions of ...