IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/colubu/fb-_88-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Does The Term Structure Tell Us About Future Inflation?

Author

Listed:
  • MISHKIN, F.S.

Abstract

This paper examines empirically what the term structure of interest rates tells us about future inflation. The evidence indicates that the information in the term structure about the future path of inflation is quite different at the shortest end of the term structure (maturities six months or less) than it is for maturities of nine to twelve months. For maturities of six months or less, in all the sample periods examined -- February 1964 to December 1986, 1964 to October 1979, November 1979 to October 1982, November 1982 to December 1986 -- the term structure provides almost no information about the future path of inflation. On the other hand at this end of the term structure, the results do indicate that the term structure of nominal interest rates contain a great deal of information about the term structure of real interest rates. This finding is quite important because it suggests that researchers can examine observable data on the shortest end of the nominal term structure to provide them with information about the behavior of the real term structure. For maturities of nine and twelve months, the term structure does appear to contain information about the future path of inflation in the full sample period and in the sub-periods before October 1982. At these longer maturities, however, there does not appear to be much information in the nominal term structure about the term structure of real interest rates. The evidence in this paper suggests that some caution should be exercised in using the term structure of interest rates as a guide for assessing inflationary pressures in the economy, as is currently under consideration by the Federal Reserve. Although there is apparently significant information in the term structure about the future path of inflation for maturities greater than six months, there is no information about the future path of inflation that can be obtained from the shorter end of the term structure.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Mishkin, F.S., 1988. "What Does The Term Structure Tell Us About Future Inflation?," Papers fb-_88-29, Columbia - Graduate School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:fth:colubu:fb-_88-29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Huizinga, John & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1984. "Inflation and Real Interest Rates on Assets with Different Risk Characteristics," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 699-712, July.
    2. Hansen, Lars Peter & Hodrick, Robert J, 1980. "Forward Exchange Rates as Optimal Predictors of Future Spot Rates: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 829-853, October.
    3. 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.
    4. Nelson, Charles R & Schwert, G William, 1977. "Short-Term Interest Rates as Predictors of Inflation: On Testing the Hypothesis That the Real Rate of Interest is Constant," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 478-486, June.
    5. Robert J. Shiller & John Y. Campbell & Kermit L. Schoenholtz, 1983. "Forward Rates and Future Policy: Interpreting the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 14(1), pages 173-224.
    6. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1984. "The Lucas Critique and the Volcker Deflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 211-215, May.
    7. Campbell, John Y & Shiller, Robert J, 1987. "Cointegration and Tests of Present Value Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1062-1088, October.
    8. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    9. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Publishing House "SINERGIA PRESS", vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    10. Startz, Richard, 1982. "Do forecast errors or term premia really make the difference between long and short rates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 323-329, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic structure ; information ; inflation;

    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:fth:colubu:fb-_88-29. 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: (Thomas Krichel). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/gsclbus.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.