IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2014-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tips from TIPS: the informational content of Treasury Inflation-Protected Security prices

Author

Listed:
  • Stefania D'Amico
  • Don H. Kim
  • Min Wei

Abstract

Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) are frequently thought of as risk-free real bonds. Using no-arbitrage term structure models, we show that TIPS yields exceeded risk-free real yields by as much as 100 basis points when TIPS were first issued and up to 300 basis points during the recent financial crisis. This spread reflects predominantly the poorer liquidity of TIPS relative to nominal Treasury securities. Other factors, including the indexation lag and the embedded deflation protection in TIPS, play a much smaller role. Ignoring this spread also significantly distorts the informational content of TIPS breakeven inflation, a widely-used proxy for expected inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefania D'Amico & Don H. Kim & Min Wei, 2014. "Tips from TIPS: the informational content of Treasury Inflation-Protected Security prices," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2014-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2014-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2014/201424/201424pap.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Marvin Goodfriend, 1993. "Interest rate policy and the inflation scare problem: 1979-1992," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert & Min Wei, 2008. "The Term Structure of Real Rates and Expected Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 797-849, April.
    4. 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.
    5. Fama, Eugene F, 1975. "Short-Term Interest Rates as Predictors of Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 269-282, June.
    6. Ferson, Wayne E & Harvey, Campbell R, 1991. "The Variation of Economic Risk Premiums," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 385-415, April.
    7. Gupta, Anurag & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2000. "An empirical examination of the convexity bias in the pricing of interest rate swaps," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 239-279, February.
    8. Buraschi, Andrea & Jiltsov, Alexei, 2005. "Inflation risk premia and the expectations hypothesis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 429-490, February.
    9. Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2002. "Do Bonds Span the Fixed Income Markets? Theory and Evidence for Unspanned Stochastic Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1685-1730, August.
    10. Robert A. Jarrow, 2009. "The Term Structure of Interest Rates," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 69-96, November.
    11. Gurkaynak, Refet S. & Sack, Brian & Wright, Jonathan H., 2007. "The U.S. Treasury yield curve: 1961 to the present," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2291-2304, November.
    12. Chernov, Mikhail & Mueller, Philippe, 2012. "The term structure of inflation expectations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(2), pages 367-394.
    13. Amihud, Yakov & Mendelson, Haim, 1986. "Asset pricing and the bid-ask spread," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 223-249, December.
    14. Poole, William, 1988. "Monetary Policy Lessons of Recent Inflation and Disinflation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 73-100, Summer.
    15. Chen, Nai-Fu & Roll, Richard & Ross, Stephen A, 1986. "Economic Forces and the Stock Market," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 383-403, July.
    16. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert & Wei, Min, 2007. "Do macro variables, asset markets, or surveys forecast inflation better?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1163-1212, May.
    17. Martin D. D. Evans, 2003. "Real risk, inflation risk, and the term structure," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(487), pages 345-389, April.
    18. Haitao Li & Feng Zhao, 2006. "Unspanned Stochastic Volatility: Evidence from Hedging Interest Rate Derivatives," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 341-378, February.
    19. Qiang Dai & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2000. "Specification Analysis of Affine Term Structure Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 1943-1978, October.
    20. Don H Kim, 2007. "Spanned stochastic volatility in bond markets: a reexamination of the relative pricing between bonds and bond options," BIS Working Papers 239, Bank for International Settlements.
    21. 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.
    22. Chan, Louis K C, 1994. "Consumption, Inflation Risk, and Real Interest Rates: An Empirical Analysis," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(1), pages 69-96, January.
    23. 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.
    24. Gregory R. Duffee, 2002. "Term Premia and Interest Rate Forecasts in Affine Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 405-443, February.
    25. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian P. Sack & Eric T. Swanson, 2003. "The excess sensitivity of long-term interest rates: evidence and implications for macroeconomic models," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    26. Joost Driessen, 2005. "Is Default Event Risk Priced in Corporate Bonds?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 165-195.
    27. Hull, John & White, Alan, 1990. "Pricing Interest-Rate-Derivative Securities," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(4), pages 573-592.
    28. Robert Jarrow & Yildiray Yildirim, 2008. "Pricing Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and Related Derivatives using an HJM Model," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Derivatives Pricing Selected Works of Robert Jarrow, chapter 16, pages 349-370, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    29. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Jonathan H. Wright, 2010. "The TIPS Yield Curve and Inflation Compensation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 70-92, January.
    30. Nelson, Charles R & Siegel, Andrew F, 1987. "Parsimonious Modeling of Yield Curves," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(4), pages 473-489, October.
    31. repec:fip:fedgsq:y:2007:i:jul10 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Ghysels, Eric, 1993. "Editor's introduction : Seasonality and econometric models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1-2), pages 1-8.
    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. Grishchenko, Olesya V. & Vanden, Joel M. & Zhang, Jianing, 2016. "The informational content of the embedded deflation option in TIPS," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1-26.
    2. Chernov, Mikhail & Mueller, Philippe, 2012. "The term structure of inflation expectations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(2), pages 367-394.
    3. Ho, Hsiao-Wei & Huang, Henry H. & Yildirim, Yildiray, 2014. "Affine model of inflation-indexed derivatives and inflation risk premium," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 235(1), pages 159-169.
    4. Duffee, Gregory, 2013. "Forecasting Interest Rates," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 385-426, Elsevier.
    5. Breach, Tomas & D’Amico, Stefania & Orphanides, Athanasios, 2020. "The term structure and inflation uncertainty," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(2), pages 388-414.
    6. repec:oup:ecpoli:v:25:y:2010:i::p:755-806 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Doshi, Hitesh & Jacobs, Kris & Liu, Rui, 2018. "Macroeconomic determinants of the term structure: Long-run and short-run dynamics," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 99-122.
    8. Gregory R. Duffee, 2012. "Forecasting interest rates," Economics Working Paper Archive 599, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    9. Andrea Berardi, 2013. "Inflation Risk Premia, Yield Volatility and Macro Factors," Working Papers 27/2013, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    10. Geert Bekaert & Xiaozheng Wang, 2010. "Inflation risk and the inflation risk premium," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 25, pages 755-806, October.
    11. Tobias Adrian & Hao Wu, 2009. "The term structure of inflation expectations," Staff Reports 362, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    12. Adrian, Tobias & Crump, Richard K. & Moench, Emanuel, 2013. "Pricing the term structure with linear regressions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 110-138.
    13. Koijen, Ralph S.J. & Hemert, Otto Van & Nieuwerburgh, Stijn Van, 2009. "Mortgage timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 292-324, August.
    14. Chen, Ren-Raw & Liu, Bo & Cheng, Xiaolin, 2010. "Pricing the term structure of inflation risk premia: Theory and evidence from TIPS," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 702-721, September.
    15. Daniela Kubudi & José Vicente, 2016. "A Joint Model of Nominal and Real Yield Curves," Working Papers Series 452, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    16. Engle, Robert & Roussellet, Guillaume & Siriwardane, Emil, 2017. "Scenario generation for long run interest rate risk assessment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 201(2), pages 333-347.
    17. Joseph G. Haubrich & George Pennacchi & Peter H. Ritchken, 2008. "Estimating real and nominal term structures using Treasury yields, inflation, inflation forecasts, and inflation swap rates," Working Papers (Old Series) 0810, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    18. Goliński, Adam & Zaffaroni, Paolo, 2016. "Long memory affine term structure models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(1), pages 33-56.
    19. Robert A. Jarrow, 2009. "The Term Structure of Interest Rates," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 69-96, November.
    20. Andreasen, Martin M. & Christensen, Jens H.E. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 2019. "Term Structure Analysis with Big Data: One-Step Estimation Using Bond Prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 26-46.
    21. Jens H. E. Christensen & Jose A. Lopez & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2010. "Inflation Expectations and Risk Premiums in an Arbitrage‐Free Model of Nominal and Real Bond Yields," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 143-178, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    TIPS; Breakeven; No-arbitrage term structure model; Liquidity; Expected inflation; Inflation risk premium; Survey forecasts; Indexation lag; Deflation floor;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedgfe:2014-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

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

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.