New evidence on the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of bond yields

"This paper tests the expectations hypothesis (EH) with the data used in Campbell and Shiller's (1991) seminal work on the EH using a Lagrange multiplier test developed recently by Bekaert and Hodrick (2001). This test is applied under the assumption that interest rates are integrated of order one, I(1), as in Campbell and Shiller (1987), and under the assumption that interest rates are stationary. We also extend the literature beyond the bivariate comparisons of long-term and short-term rates which dominates the EH testing literature. In addition, we examine the linkage between the term structure and macrcoeconomic variables. Consistent with the findings of Campbell and Shiller (1991), the EH is rejected at the short end of the maturity spectrum but not at the longer end. The EH is rejected at the longer end of the term structure when more than two rates or the relationship between the term structure and the macroeconomy are considered. Moreover, we find that evaluating the EH using the ratio of the variance of the forecasted long-term rate (or rate spread) under the EH to the observed variance generates misleading information about the merit of the EH"--Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site.