IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2015-094.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Important are Debt and Growth Expectations for Interest Rates?

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Sohrab Rafiq

Abstract

This paper uses a dataset on private-sector risk aversion as well as expectations of long-run growth and debt to explain trends in implied forward rates on government bonds in the G-7 countries. The results show, consistent with the literature, that a one-percent rise in the long-run projected debt-to-GDP ratio causes an increase in bond yields of a relatively modest 1-to-6 basis points. Shocks to growth expectations and risk aversion have been comparatively more successful in explaining the behavior of long-term rates. The findings imply that growth policies rather than long-run projections of fiscal outcomes may be more important in helping influence long-term borrowing costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Sohrab Rafiq, 2015. "How Important are Debt and Growth Expectations for Interest Rates?," IMF Working Papers 2015/094, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2015/094
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42890
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael D. Bauer, 2011. "What moves the interest rate term structure?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue nov.7.
    2. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233-267.
    3. Kitchen, John, 2002. "A Note on Interest Rates and Structural Federal Budget Deficits," MPRA Paper 21069, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2002.
    4. Leduc, Sylvain & Sill, Keith & Stark, Tom, 2007. "Self-fulfilling expectations and the inflation of the 1970s: Evidence from the Livingston Survey," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 433-459, March.
    5. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    6. Gurkaynak, Refet S. & Sack, Brian T. & Swanson, Eric P., 2007. "Market-Based Measures of Monetary Policy Expectations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 201-212, April.
    7. John H. Cochrane, 2011. "Presidential Address: Discount Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1047-1108, August.
    8. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2005. "The Sensitivity of Long-Term Interest Rates to Economic News: Evidence and Implications for Macroeconomic Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 425-436, March.
    9. Jouchi Nakajima & Yuki Teranishi, 2009. "The Evolution of Loan Rate Stickiness Across the Euro Area," IMES Discussion Paper Series 09-E-10, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    10. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Jonathan H. Wright, 2012. "Macroeconomics and the Term Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 331-367, June.
    11. Athanasios Orphanides & John Williams, 2004. "Imperfect Knowledge, Inflation Expectations, and Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "Drift and Volatilities: Monetary Policies and Outcomes in the Post WWII U.S," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 262-302, April.
    13. J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    14. John Kitchen & Menzie Chinn, 2011. "Financing US Debt: Is There Enough Money in the World – and at What Cost?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 373-413, December.
    15. J. Durbin, 2002. "A simple and efficient simulation smoother for state space time series analysis," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 89(3), pages 603-616, August.
    16. Christiane Baumeister & Luca Benati, 2013. "Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Great Recession: Estimating the Macroeconomic Effects of a Spread Compression at the Zero Lower Bound," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 9(2), pages 165-212, June.
    17. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    18. Friedman, Benjamin M, 1979. "Interest Rate Expectations versus Forward Rates: Evidence from an Expectations Survey," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(4), pages 965-973, September.
    19. Sohrab Rafiq, 2014. "What Do Energy Prices Tell Us About UK Inflation?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 293-310, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sérgio C. Lagoa & Emanuel R. Leão & Diptes P. Bhimjee, 2022. "Dynamics of the public-debt-to-gdp ratio: can it explain the risk premium of treasury bonds?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1089-1122, November.

    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. Kevin Lansing, 2009. "Time Varying U.S. Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(2), pages 304-326, April.
    2. Baumeister, Christiane, 2021. "Measuring Market Expectations," CEPR Discussion Papers 16520, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. William A. Branch & John Carlson & George W. Evans & Bruce McGough, 2009. "Monetary Policy, Endogenous Inattention and the Volatility Trade‐off," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 123-157, January.
    4. Yingying Xu & Zhi-Xin Liu & Hsu-Ling Chang & Adelina Dumitrescu Peculea & Chi-Wei Su, 2017. "Does self-fulfilment of the inflation expectation exist?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(11), pages 1098-1113, March.
    5. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2017. "Asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes: a survey," BIS Working Papers 676, Bank for International Settlements.
    6. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Emanuel Moench, 2016. "The term structure of expectations and bond yields," Staff Reports 775, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    7. Andrade, Philippe & Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Moench, Emanuel, 2016. "Fundamental disagreement," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 106-128.
    8. Sujit Kapadia, 2005. "Inflation-Target Expectations and Optimal Monetary Policy," Economics Series Working Papers 227, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Clark, Todd E. & Davig, Troy, 2011. "Decomposing the declining volatility of long-term inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 981-999, July.
    10. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    11. Yingying XU & Zhixin LIU & Jaime ORTIZ, 2018. "Actual and Expected Inflation in the U.S.: A Time-Frequency View," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 42-62, December.
    12. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Emanuel Moench & Bruce Preston, 2021. "The Term Structure of Expectations," Staff Reports 992, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    13. Maryam Movahedifar & Hossein Hassani & Masoud Yarmohammadi & Mahdi Kalantari & Rangan Gupta, 2021. "A robust approach for outlier imputation: Singular Spectrum Decomposition," Working Papers 202164, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    14. Swanson, Eric T., 2021. "Measuring the effects of federal reserve forward guidance and asset purchases on financial markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 32-53.
    15. Paul Hubert, 2014. "FOMC Forecasts as a Focal Point for Private Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(7), pages 1381-1420, October.
    16. Baele, Lieven & Bekaert, Geert & Cho, Seonghoon & Inghelbrecht, Koen & Moreno, Antonio, 2015. "Macroeconomic regimes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 51-71.
    17. Gabriele Galati & Peter Heemeijer & Richhild Moessner, 2011. "How do inflation expectations form? New insights from a high-frequency survey," BIS Working Papers 349, Bank for International Settlements.
    18. James M. Nason & Gregor W. Smith, 2021. "Measuring the slowly evolving trend in US inflation with professional forecasts," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 1-17, January.
    19. Gerunov, Anton, 2014. "Критичен Преглед На Основните Подходи За Моделиране На Икономическите Очаквания [A Critical Review of Major Approaches for Modeling Economic Expectations]," MPRA Paper 68797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Schmeling, Maik & Schrimpf, Andreas & Steffensen, Sigurd A.M., 2022. "Monetary policy expectation errors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 841-858.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2015/094. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.