The Japanese yen futures returns, spot returns, and the risk premium

Japanese yen currency dynamics are investigated in spot and futures markets. Maturity is proposed as a proxy for the time-varying risk premium. As the maturity of a yen futures contract nears, there is less uncertainty implying a small absolute risk premium. A longer maturity is associated with uncertainty about the economy, the underlying currency, and the contract; and implies a high risk premium. Models that include maturity in addition to the futures-spot basis as explanatory variables exhibit better empirical performance in explaining futures returns and spot returns. The results are robust to different sample periods, forecast horizons, and estimation techniques. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.