Are Term Premiums Predictable in Central European Countries? The Forward Rates Agreements (FRA) Application

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to decide whether or not term premiums appear and thus are predictable in Central European countries in the data sample of forward rate agreement interest rates and corresponding spot interest rates. Term premiums theoretically are explained thanks to the applications of the efficient market hypothesis theory, the expectations theory, and the liquidity preferences theory. Empirically, we used cointegration techniques for nonstationary time series, mainly using the cointegration method (simple and even for panel data) and the vector error correction model. We used data samples of Central European countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) and also of the United Kingdom. We found that the best future estimate of term premiums is its current value. It does not refer in the same way to the market efficiency hypothesis (EMH) or theexpectations hypothesis (EH).