This paper explores the history of inflation-indexed bond markets in the US and the UK. It documents a massive decline in long-term real interest rates from the 1990's until 2008, followed by a sudden spike in these rates during the financial crisis of 2008. Breakeven inflation rates, calculated from inflation- indexed and nominal government bond yields, stabilized until the fall of 2008, when they showed dramatic declines. The paper asks to what extent short-term real interest rates, bond risks, and liquidity explain the trends before 2008 and the unusual developments in the fall of 2008. Low inflation-indexed yields and high short-term volatility of inflation-indexed bond returns do not invalidate the basic case for these bonds, that they provide a safe asset for long-term investors. Governments should expect inflation-indexed bonds to be a relatively cheap form of debt financing going forward, even though they have offered high returns over the past decade.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
15014.
Length: Date of creation: May 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15014
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
John Y. Campbell & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2004.
"Bad Beta, Good Beta,"
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[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
John Y. Campbell & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2003.
"Bad Beta, Good Beta,"
NBER Working Papers
9509, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1996.
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National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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