The objective of this paper is to employ the generalized autoregressive conditionally
heteroskedastic in the mean (GARCH-M) methodology to investigate the effect of interest rate and its volatility on the bank stock return generation process. This framework
discards the restrictive assumptions of linearity, independence, and constant conditional
variance in modeling bank stock returns. The model presented here allows for shifts in
the volatility equation in response to the changes in monetary policy regime in 1979 and
1982 to be estimated. ARCH, GARCH, and volatility feed back eects are found to be
significant. Interest rate and interest rate volatility are found to directly impact the first
and the second moments of the bank stock returns distribution, respectively. The latter
also aects the risk premia indirectly. The degree of persistence in shocks is substantial
for all the three bank portfolios and sensitive to the nature of the bank portfolio and the
prevailing monetary policy regime.1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved