IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fednep/y2004imayp47-63nv.10no.1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Treasury inflation-indexed debt: a review of the U.S. experience

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Elsasser
  • Brian P. Sack

Abstract

This article describes the evolution of Treasury inflation-indexed debt securities (TIIS) since their introduction in 1997. Over most of this period, TIIS yields have been surprisingly high relative to those on comparable nominal Treasury securities, with the spread between the nominal and indexed yields falling well below survey measures of long-run inflation expectations. The authors argue that the low relative valuation of TIIS may have reflected investor difficulty adjusting to a new asset class, supply trends, and the lower liquidity of indexed debt. In addition, investors may have had a benign outlook for inflation and may not have demanded much, if any, of an inflation risk premium to hold nominal securities. As a result, inflation-indexed debt has not yet lived up to one of its main purposes: to reduce the Treasury's expected financing costs. More recently, though, TIIS market liquidity and the breadth of investor participation have increased considerably, and the valuation of these securities appears to have improved.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Elsasser & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Treasury inflation-indexed debt: a review of the U.S. experience," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue May, pages 47-63.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednep:y:2004:i:may:p:47-63:n:v.10no.1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/epr/04v10n1/0405sack.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/epr/04v10n1/0405sack.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fischer, Stanley, 1975. "The Demand for Index Bonds," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(3), pages 509-534, June.
    2. Dominique Dupont & Brian P. Sack, 1999. "The Treasury securities market: overview and recent development," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Dec, pages 785-806.
    3. Bohn, Henning, 1990. "Tax Smoothing with Financial Instruments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1217-1230, December.
    4. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1996. "A Scorecard for Indexed Government Debt," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 155-208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. David L. Reifschneider & Robert J. Tetlow & John Williams, 1999. "Aggregate disturbances, monetary policy, and the macroeconomy: the FRB/US perspective," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 85(Jan), pages 1-19, January.
    6. David W. Wilcox, 1998. "Policy Watch: The Introduction of Indexed Government Debt in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 219-227, Winter.
    7. Brian P. Sack, 2000. "Deriving inflation expectations from nominal and inflation-indexed Treasury yields," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-33, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. J. Huston McCulloch, 2001. "The Inflation Premium implicit in the US Real and Nominal," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 210, Society for Computational Economics.
    9. Jonathan Corning & Pu Shen, 2001. "Can TIPS help identify long-term inflation expectations?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 86(Q IV), pages 61-87.
    10. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1996. "A Scorecard for Indexed Government Data," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1758, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert Elsasser & Brian P. Sack, 2002. "Treasury inflation-indexed debt: a review of the U.S. experience," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-32, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Juan Angel Garcia & Adrian van Rixtel, 2007. "Inflation-linked bonds from a central bank perspective," Occasional Papers 0705, Banco de España.
    3. Ian Christensen & Frédéric Dion & Christopher Reid, 2004. "Real Return Bonds, Inflation Expectations, and the Break-Even Inflation Rate," Staff Working Papers 04-43, Bank of Canada.
    4. Westerhout, Ed, 2021. "Inflation-Linked Bonds, Nominal Bonds, and Countercyclical Monetary Policies," Discussion Paper 2021-001, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    5. Francis Breedon & Jag Chadha, 1997. "The Information Content of the Inflation Term Structure," Bank of England working papers 75, Bank of England.
    6. Marcet, Albert & Scott, Andrew, 2009. "Debt and deficit fluctuations and the structure of bond markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 473-501, March.
    7. LuisM. Viceira & John Y. Campbell, 2001. "Who Should Buy Long-Term Bonds?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 99-127, March.
    8. Westerhout, Ed, 2021. "Inflation-Linked Bonds, Nominal Bonds, and Countercyclical Monetary Policies," Other publications TiSEM ee384b1f-4e6f-4f30-821e-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Ed Westerhout & Ona Ciocyte, 2017. "The role of inflation-linked bonds," CPB Discussion Paper 344, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    10. Pintér, Gábor, 2022. "The procyclicality of inflation-linked debt," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    11. John Y. Campbell & Yeung Lewis Chanb & M. Viceira, 2013. "A multivariate model of strategic asset allocation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part II, chapter 39, pages 809-848, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Silverio Foresi & Alessandro Penati & George Pennacchi, 1997. "Estimating the cost of U.S. indexed bonds," Working Papers (Old Series) 9701, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    13. Andreas Reschreiter, 2011. "Real and nominal UK interest rates, ERM membership, and inflation targeting," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 559-579, May.
    14. Hunter, Delroy M. & Simon, David P., 2005. "Are TIPS the "real" deal?: A conditional assessment of their role in a nominal portfolio," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 347-368, February.
    15. Sunder-Plassmann, Laura, 2020. "Infation, default and sovereign debt: The role of denomination and ownership," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    16. Jakub W. Jurek & Luis M. Viceira, 2011. "Optimal Value and Growth Tilts in Long-Horizon Portfolios," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 15(1), pages 29-74.
    17. Peter Hördahl & Oreste Tristani, 2012. "Inflation Risk Premia In The Term Structure Of Interest Rates," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 634-657, May.
    18. Azoulay, Eddy & Brenner, Menachem & Landskroner, Yoram & Stein, Roy, 2014. "Inflation risk premium implied by options," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 90-102.
    19. Westerhout, Ed & Ciocyte, Ona, 2017. "The Role of Inflation-Linked Bonds. Increasing, but Still Modest," Other publications TiSEM 08878bbd-e76e-4216-bee9-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Reschreiter, Andreas, 2011. "The effects of the monetary policy regime shift to inflation targeting on the real interest rate in the United Kingdom," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 754-759, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fednep:y:2004:i:may:p:47-63:n:v.10no.1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.