Is the absence of a meaningful premium for US long-term bonds relative to short-term bonds evidence of market inefficiency? Does this relation hold in other global bond markets? EFF: Unfortunately, we need long periods of data to do the relevant tests, and we do not have good long-term data on bond markets outside the U.S. For the U.S. we only have good long-term data (from CRSP) for Government bonds. Tests on the U.S. data do not indicate that the small average premiums observed in the returns on long-term versus short-term Government bonds are badly out of line with the predictions of asset pricing models. The models do not predict big differences in the returns on long-term and short-term governments, and the observed premiums are statistically consistent with the models. The same is true for the rather small premiums of corporate bond returns over Government bond returns. Is the absence of a meaningful premium for US long-term bonds relative to short-term bonds evidence of market inefficiency? Does this relation hold in other global bond markets? (Read the full entry)
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