The term structure relations implied by a model in which preferences are non-separable functions of the service flows from two goods are investigated. The parameters characterizing preferences are estimated and restrictions on the co-movements of consumptions and Treasury bill returns are examined. Both the durability of goods and the non-separability of preferences are important factors in explaining the time paths of individual returns, but there is substantial evidence against the cross-sectional restrictions implied by our model. Differences between sample mean returns are too large relative to the sample covariances of the return differences and the marginal utility of consumption.

Linear projections of returns on the slope of the yield curve have contradicted the implications of the traditional “expectations theory”. This paper shows that these findings are not puzzling relative to a large class of richer dynamic term structure models. Specifically, we match all the key empirical findings reported by Fama and Bliss ((1987) American Economic Review 77 (4), 680–692) and Campbell and Shiller ((1991) Review of Economic Studies 58, 495–514), among others, within large subclasses of affine and quadratic-Gaussian term structure models. Additionally, we show that certain “risk-premium adjusted” projections of changes in yields on the slope of the yield curve recover the coefficients of unity predicted by the models. Key to this matching are parameterizations of the market prices of risk that let the risk factors affect the market prices of risk directly, and not only through factor volatilities. The risk premiums have a simple form consistent with Fama's findings on the predictability of forward rates, and are also shown to be consistent with interest-rate feedback rules used by a monetary authority in setting monetary policy.

This paper explores the implications of filtering and no-arbitrage for the maximum likelihood estimates of the entire conditional distribution of the risk factors and bond yields in Gaussian macro-finance term structure model (MTSM) when all yields are priced imperfectly. For typical yield curves and macro-variables studied in this literature, the estimated joint distribution within a canonical MTSM is nearly identical to the estimate from an economic-model-free factor vector-autoregression (factor-VAR), even when measurement errors are large. It follows that a canonical MTSM offers no new insights into economic questions regarding the historical distribution of the macro risk factors and yields, over and above what is learned from a factor-VAR. These results are rotation-invariant and, therefore, apply to many of the specifications in the literature.