• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.1-31
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• 2008

Before the financial crisis in 1997, Korean bond markets had been those of corporate bonds with relatively high market yield. During the period, most of major institutional investors tend to utilize passive strategies such as buying and holding. After the crisis, however, they could not help choosing active bond management strategies because of lowed yield level and intensified competition among the financial institutions. This study is forced on the yield curve, which is the reflection of all information on the bond investment environments. The study also make analysis on the major economic and securities market factors and its structural relationship with the shape of the curve such as level, curvature and slope. For these purposes, an empirical model based on the Nelson-Siegel Model is estimated with the data during $1999{\sim}2006$. Out-of-sample forecasting is also made to test the usefulness of the estimated model. In addition, the dependent variables which are the estimates of level and slope are estimated on the macro variables and securities market variables. VAR and SUR models are used for the estimation. Estimation results show that level and slope of the yield curve are influenced by the target call rate change, exchange rate change rate, inflation rate. These results provide practical implications for the active managements in the overall treasury bond markets.