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The term structure of real rates and expected inflation

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Author Info
Andrew Ang
Geert Bekaert

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Abstract

Changes in nominal interest rates must be due to either movements in real interest rates or expected inflation, or both. We develop a term structure model with regime switches, time-varying prices of risk and inflation to identify these components of the nominal yield curve. We find that the unconditional real rate curve is fairly flat at 1.44%, but slightly humped. In one regime, the real term structure is steeply downward sloping. Real rates (nominal rates) are pro-cyclical (counter-cyclical) and inflation is negatively correlated with real rates. An inflation risk premium that increases with the horizon fully accounts for the generally upward sloping nominal term structure. We find that expected inflation drives about 80% of the variation of nominal yields at both short and long maturities, but during normal times, all of the variation of nominal term spreads is due to expected inflation and inflation risk.

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Article provided by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in its journal Proceedings.

Volume (Year): (2004)
Issue (Month): Mar ()
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfpr:y:2004:i:mar:x:3

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Keywords: Interest rates Monetary policy

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Reschreiter, Andreas, 2006. "Indexed Bonds and Revisions of Inflation Expectations," Economics Series 199, Institute for Advanced Studies. [Downloadable!]
  2. Andrew Ang & Monika Piazzesi & Min Wei, 2004. "What Does the Yield Curve Tell us about GDP Growth?," NBER Working Papers 10672, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Geert Bekaert & Eric Engstrom & Steven R. Grenadier, 2006. "Stock and Bond Returns with Moody Investors," NBER Working Papers 12247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Lieven Baele & Geert Bekaert & Koen Inghelbrecht, 2007. "The determinants of stock and bond return comovements," Research series 200711-27, National Bank of Belgium. [Downloadable!]
  5. Geert Bekaert & Eric Engstrom & Yuhang Xing, 2006. "Risk, Uncertainty and Asset Prices," NBER Working Papers 12248, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Ravenna , Federico & Seppälä, Juha, 2007. "Monetary policy, expected inflation and inflation risk premia," Research Discussion Papers 18/2007, Bank of Finland. [Downloadable!]
  7. Modena, Matteo, 2008. "The term structure and the expectations hypothesis: a threshold model," MPRA Paper 9611, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  8. Peter Vlaar, 2007. "Term Structure Modeling for Pension Funds:What to do in Practice?," DNB Working Papers 123, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  9. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert & Min Wei, 2005. "Do Macro Variables, Asset Markets or Surveys Forecast Inflation Better?," NBER Working Papers 11538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Greg Duffee, 2005. "Term structure estimation without using latent factors," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 103, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  11. David K. Backus & Jonathan H. Wright, 2007. "Cracking the Conundrum," Working Papers 07-22, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  12. Adrien Verdelhan, 2006. "A Habit-Based Explanation of the Exchange Rate Risk Premium," Boston University - Department of Economics - Macroeconomics Working Papers Series WP2006-047, Boston University - Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  13. Peter Hördahl & Oreste Tristani, 2007. "Mortage interest rate dispersion in the euro area," Working Paper Series 734, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  14. Beechey, Meredith, 2004. "Excess Sensitivity and Volatility of Long Interest Rates: The Role of Limited Information in Bond Markets," Working Paper Series 173, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden). [Downloadable!]
  15. Qiang Dai & Kenneth J. Singleton & Wei Yang, 2004. "Regime shifts in a dynamic term structure model of U.S. Treasury bond yields," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar. [Downloadable!]
  16. Andrew Ang & Sen Dong & Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "No-arbitrage Taylor rules," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  17. Peter Hördahl & Oreste Tristani & David Vestin, 2006. "The term structure of inflation risk premia and macroeconomic dynamics," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 203, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  18. Hasseltoft, Henrik, 2007. "The Long-run Risk Model: Dynamics and Cyclicality of Interest Rates," SIFR Research Report Series 58, Swedish Institute for Financial Research. [Downloadable!]
  19. Peter Spreij & Enno Veerman & Peter Vlaar, 2008. "Multivariate Feller conditions in term structure models: Why do(n't) we care?," DNB Working Papers 173, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  20. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2003. "The excess sensitivity of long-term interest rates: evidence and implications for macroeconomic models," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-50, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  21. Peter Hoerdahl & Oreste Tristani, 2004. "A joint econometric model of macroeconomic and term structure dynamics," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 379, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  22. Georges Dionne & Geneviève Gauthier & Khemais Hammami & Mathieu Maurice & Jean-Guy Simonato, 2007. "A Reduced Form Model of Default Spreads with Markov Switching Macroeconomic Factors," Cahiers de recherche 0741, CIRPEE. [Downloadable!]
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