Claude B. Erb
First Chicago Investment Management Co., Chicago, IL 60670
Campbell R. Harvey
Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138
Tadas E. Viskanta
First Chicago Investment Management Co., Chicago, IL 60670
Abstract
Is there information in the commonly used indicators of country risk for expected global fixed income returns and volatility? We examine the information content in publicly available measures of political, financial and economic risk. We find that these ex-ante measures contain important information about the cross-section of expected fixed income and currency returns. Trading strategies based on the change in, and level of, these risk measures produce positive risk-adjusted returns. We find that the country risk measures are significantly correlated with international bond metrics, such as real yields.