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The monetary policy targets the short rates; however, during zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), the short end of the yield curve cannot serve as a policy instrument. Relying on the joint yields-macro latent factors model, this study empirically examines the effect of monetary policy stances on term structure and the possible feedback effect on the real sector using the Japanese experience of ZIRP. The analysis indicates that it is the entire term structure that transmits the policy shocks to the real economy rather than the yield spread only. The monetary policy signals pass through the yield curve level and slope factors to stimulate the economic activity. The curvature factor, besides reflecting the cyclical fluctuations of the economy, acts as a leading indicator for future inflation. In addition, policy influence tends to be low as the short end becomes segmented toward medium/long-term of the yield curve. Furthermore, volatility in bond markets is found to be asymmetrically affected by positive and negative shocks and long end tends to be less sensitive to stochastic shocks than the short maturities. The expectation hypothesis of the term structure does not hold during the ZIRP period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a recent year, the conditional expectation for technical inefficiency (i.e., the predictor) in stochastic frontier production models and its confidence interval are proved to be increasing in the individual firm's inefficiency effect, which is defined as the mean of the normal distribution that is truncated at zero. This paper illustrates how the two recent contributions work in practice and how these findings are significant, by using the Battese and Coelli (1995) type specification and giving an empirical study on the Japanese pharmaceutical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]