IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3036.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Treasury Bill Rates in the 1970s and 1980s

Author

Listed:
  • Patric H. Hendershott
  • Joe Peek

Abstract

As is widely recognized, real interest rates in the early 1980s were at peaks not witnessed since the late 1920s. Less well perceived is the sharp decline in real interest rates since 1984. By 1986-88, real interest rates were back at their average levels of the previous quarter century. This paper seeks to identify the underlying determinants of the major movements in real six-month Treasury bill rates. The rise in real interest rates between the middle 1970s and early 1980s, not surprisingly, results from a variety of factors. First, rates were unusually low in the middle 1970s owing to the first OPEC shock, which lowered investment demand and increased world saving by transferring wealth from the high-consuming developed countries to OPEC. Second, tight money, high inflation, and heightened nuclear fear all contributed to real rates becoming unusually high in the early 1980s. The eventual decline of OPEC surpluses following the second OPEC shock prolonged the period of high real rates. The decline in real rates to more normal levels in the 1986-88 period is also due to multiple factors: lower inflation, declining marginal tax rates, and easy monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Patric H. Hendershott & Joe Peek, 1989. "Treasury Bill Rates in the 1970s and 1980s," NBER Working Papers 3036, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3036
    Note: ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3036.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peek, Joe & Wilcox, James A, 1984. "The Degree of Fiscal Illusion in Interest Rates: Some Direct Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1061-1066, December.
    2. Martin Feldstein, 1987. "The Effects of Taxation on Capital Accumulation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld87-1, August.
    3. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    4. Martin Feldstein & Joosung Jun, 1987. "The Effects of Tax Rules on Nonresidential Fixed Investment: Some Preliminary Evidence from the 1980s," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Capital Accumulation, pages 101-162, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Richard H. Clarida & Benjamin M. Friedman, 1983. "Why Have Short-Term Interest Rates Been So High?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 14(2), pages 553-586.
    6. Joel Slemrod, 1986. "Saving and the Fear of Nuclear War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(3), pages 403-419, September.
    7. Robert Eisner, 1986. "Will the Real Federal Deficit Stand Up?," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 13-21, May.
    8. Robert E. Lipsey & Helen Stone Tice, 1989. "The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number lips89-1, August.
    9. Martin Feldstein & Lawrence Summers, 1983. "Inflation, Tax Rules, and the Long-term Interest Rate," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation, Tax Rules, and Capital Formation, pages 153-185, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Peek, Joe & Wilcox, James A, 1983. "The Postwar Stability of the Fisher Effect," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 38(4), pages 1111-1124, September.
    11. Thomas D. Simpson, 1984. "Changes in the Financial System: Implication for Monetary Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(1), pages 249-272.
    12. Friedman, Benjamin M, 1988. "Lessons on Monetary Policy from the 1980s," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 51-72, Summer.
    13. Patric H. Hendershott, 1986. "Debt and Equity Returns Revisited," NBER Chapters, in: Financing Corporate Capital Formation, pages 35-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Peek, Joe & A. Wilcox, James, 1986. "Tax rate effects on interest rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 183-186.
    15. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    16. Cook, Timothy Q & Hendershott, Patric H, 1978. "The Impact of Taxes, Risk and Relative Security Supplies on Interest Rate Differentials," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1173-1186, September.
    17. Evans, Paul, 1985. "Do Large Deficits Produce High Interest Rates?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 68-87, March.
    18. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1988. "Lessons On Monetary Policy From The 1980's," NBER Working Papers 2551, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Slemrod, Joel, 1990. "Fear of Nuclear War and Intercountry Differences in the Rate of Saving," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(4), pages 647-657, October.
    20. Stephen M. Goldfeld, 1973. "The Demand for Money Revisited," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 4(3), pages 577-646.
    21. Olivier J. Blanchard & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Perspectives on High World Real Interest Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(2), pages 273-334.
    22. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1981. "The Current Account and macroeconomic Adjustment in the 1970s," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 12(1), pages 201-282.
    23. Patric H. Hendershott & Joe Peek, 1989. "Aggregate U.S. Private Saving: Conceptual Measures," NBER Chapters, in: The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth, pages 185-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Makin, John H, 1983. "Real Interest, Money Surprises, Anticipated Inflation and Fiscal Deficits," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(3), pages 374-384, August.
    25. Startz, Richard, 1983. "Computation of linear hypothesis tests for two-stage least squares," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 11(1-2), pages 129-131.
    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. James R. Follain, 1990. "Mortgage Choice†," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 18(2), pages 125-144, June.
    2. Follain, James R. & Hendershott, Patric H. & Ling, David C., 1992. "Real Estate Markets Since 1980: What Role Have Tax Changes Played?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 45(3), pages 253-266, September.
    3. Ireland, Peter N., 2001. "Sticky-price models of the business cycle: Specification and stability," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 3-18, February.
    4. Unknown, 1998. "References/Literature Cited," Commodity Costs and Returns Estimation Handbook,, Iowa State University.

    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. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    2. Ardagna Silvia & Caselli Francesco & Lane Timothy, 2007. "Fiscal Discipline and the Cost of Public Debt Service: Some Estimates for OECD Countries," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-35, August.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Sosunov, K., 2013. "Estimation of the Money Demand Function in Russia," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 89-99.
    5. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1988. "Money, Credit, and Business Fluctuations," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 64(4), pages 307-322, December.
    6. Belongia, Michael T. & Ireland, Peter N., 2019. "The demand for Divisia Money: Theory and evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Woodford, Michael, 1995. "Price-level determinacy without control of a monetary aggregate," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 1-46, December.
    8. Bruno Ducoudre, 2008. "Structure par terme des taux d’intérêt et anticipations de la politique économique," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/5221, Sciences Po.
    9. Lekha S. Chakraborty, 2012. "Interest Rate Determination in India: Empirical Evidence on Fiscal Deficit--Interest Rate Linkages and Financial Crowding Out," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_744, Levy Economics Institute.
    10. David Bowles & Holley Ulbrich & Myles Wallace, 1988. "Default Risk and the Effects of Fiscal Policy on Interest Rates: 1929–1945," Public Finance Review, , vol. 16(3), pages 357-373, July.
    11. Chakraborty, Lekha S., 2006. "Fiscal deficit, capital formation, and crowding out: Evidence from India," Working Papers 06/43, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    12. Yu Hsing, 2015. "Determinants of the Government Bond Yield in Spain: A Loanable Funds Model," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-9, July.
    13. Masudul Hasan Adil & Neeraj R. Hatekar & Taniya Ghosh, 2021. "The Role of Money in the Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian and New Monetarist Perspective," International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics, in: Environmental, Social, and Governance Perspectives on Economic Development in Asia, volume 29, pages 37-67, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. Ball, Laurence, 2012. "Short-run money demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 622-633.
    15. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1988_013 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Mark Wheeler, 1999. "The macroeconomic impacts of government debt: An empirical analysis of the 1980s and 1990s," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 27(3), pages 273-284, September.
    17. Stephen M. Miller & Frank S. Russek, 1991. "The Temporal Causality Between Fiscal Deficits And Interest Rates," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 9(3), pages 12-23, July.
    18. Chakraborty, Lekha, 2012. "Determination of Interest Rate in India: Empirical Evidence on Fiscal Deficit-Interest Links and Financial Crowding Out," Working Papers 12/110, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    19. Virén, Matti, 1988. "Interest rates and budget deficits : Cross-country evidence from the period 1924-1938," Research Discussion Papers 13/1988, Bank of Finland.
    20. Martin Feldstein, 1986. "Budget Deficits, Tax Rules, and real Interest Rates," NBER Working Papers 1970, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Willem Thorbecke, 2002. "A Dual Mandate for the Federal Reserve: The Pursuit of Price Stability and Full Employment," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 255-268, Spring.
    22. LAL, Deepak & van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 1985. "Government deficits, the real interest rate and LDC debt : On global crowding out," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 157-191.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:3036. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.