Regression on Term Structures

An important insight regarding use of dynamic Nelson Siegel (DNS) and related term-structure modeling strategies (see here and here) is that they facilitate regression on an entire term structure.  Regressing something on a curve might initially sound strange, or ill-posed.  The insight, of course, is that DNS distills curves into level, slope, and curvature factors; hence if you know the factors, you know the whole curve.  And those factors can be estimated and included in regressions, effectively enabling regression on a curve.

In a stimulating new paper, “The Time-Varying Effects of Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policy: Results from a New Identification Procedure”, Atsushi Inoue and Barbara Rossi put that insight to very good use. They use DNS yield curve factors to explore the effects of monetary policy during the Great Recession.  That monetary policy is often dubbed "unconventional" insofar as it involved the entire yield curve, not just a very short "policy rate".

I recently saw Atsushi present it at NBER-NSF and Barbara present it at Penn's econometrics seminar.  It was posted today, here.