TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cochrane,John H.
AU  - Piazzesi,Monika
TI  - Bond Risk Premia
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9178
PY  - 2002
Y2  - September 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9178
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9178.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John H. Cochrane
Booth School of Business
University of Chicago
5807 S. Woodlawn
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-3059
Fax: 773/702-0458
E-Mail: john.cochrane@chicagobooth.edu

Monika Piazzesi
Department of Economics
Stanford University
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
Tel: (650) 723-9289
E-Mail: piazzesi@stanford.edu
AB  - This paper studies time variation in expected excess bond returns. We run regressions of annual excess returns on forward rates. We find that a single factor predicts 1-year excess returns on 1-5 year maturity bonds with an R2 up to 43%.  The single factor is a tent-shaped linear function of forward rates. The return forecasting factor has a clear business cycle correlation: Expected returns are high in bad times, and low in good times, and the return-forecasting factor forecasts long-run output growth. The return-forecasting factor also forecasts stock returns, suggesting a common time-varying premium for real interest rate risk. The return forecasting factor is poorly related to level, slope, and curvature movements in bond yields. Therefore, it represents a source of yield curve movement not captured by most term structure models. Though the return-forecasting factor accounts for more than 99% of the time-variation in expected excess bond returns, we find additional, very small factors that forecast equally small differences between long term bond returns, and hence statistically reject a one-factor model for expected returns.
ER  -