scholarly journals A New Normal for Interest Rates? Evidence from Inflation-Indexed Debt

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (5) ◽  
pp. 933-949 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens H. E. Christensen ◽  
Glenn D. Rudebusch
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bound ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Structural Breaks ◽  
Liquidity Risk ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Real Rate ◽  
Risk Premiums ◽  
The Past ◽  
Percentage Points

The downtrend in U.S. interest rates over the past two decades may partly reflect a decline in the longer-run equilibrium real rate of interest. We examine this issue using dynamic term structure models that account for time-varying term and liquidity risk premiums and are estimated directly from prices of individual inflation-indexed bonds. Our finance-based approach avoids two potential pitfalls of previous macroeconomic analyses: structural breaks at the zero lower bound and misspecification of output and inflation dynamics. We estimate that the longer-run equilibrium real rate has fallen about 2 percentage points and appears unlikely to rise quickly.

scholarly journals Accounting for Low Long-Term Interest Rates: Evidence from Canada

2020 ◽  
pp. 1.000-72.000
Author(s):  
Jens H. E. Christensen ◽  
◽  
Glenn D. Rudebusch ◽  
Patrick J. Shultz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Inflation Expectations ◽  
Real Rate ◽  
Inflation Risk ◽  
Risk Premiums ◽  
Term Structure Model ◽  
Sovereign Credit Risk ◽  
Debt Market

In recent decades, long-term interest rates around the world have fallen to historic lows. We examine this decline using a dynamic term structure model of Canadian nominal and real yields with adjustments for term, liquidity, and inflation risk premiums. Canada provides a useful case study that has been little examined despite its established indexed debt market, negligible distortions from monetary quantitative easing or the zero lower bound, and no sovereign credit risk. We find that since 2000, the steady-state real interest rate has fallen by more than 2 percentage points, long-term inflation expectations have edged down, and real bond and inflation risk premiums have fluctuated but shown little longer-run trend. Therefore, the drop in the equilibrium real rate appears largely to account for the lower new normal in interest rates.

scholarly journals The Rising Cost of Climate Change: Evidence from the Bond Market

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-45
Author(s):  
Michael D. Bauer ◽  
Glenn D. Rudebusch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Interest Rate ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
Carbon Mitigation ◽  
Interest Rate Models ◽  
Real Rate ◽  
The Social

Abstract Social discount rates (SDRs) are crucial for evaluating the costs of climate change. We show that the fundamental anchor for market-based SDRs is the equilibrium or steady-state real interest rate. Empirical interest rate models that allow for shifts in this equilibrium real rate find that it has declined notably since the 1990s, and this decline implies that the entire term structure of SDRs has shifted lower as well. Accounting for this new normal of persistently lower interest rates substantially boosts estimates of the social cost of carbon and supports a climate policy with stronger carbon mitigation strategies.

Term spread regressions of the rational expectations hypothesis of the term structure allowing for risk premium effects

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Efthymios Argyropoulos ◽  
Elias Tzavalis
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Structure Model ◽  
Expectations Hypothesis ◽  
Term Structure Model ◽  
Term Spread ◽  
Term Premium

AbstractThis paper suggests a new empirical methodology of testing the predictions of the term spread between long and short-term interest rates about future changes of the former allowing for term premium effects, according to the rational expectations hypothesis of the term structure. To capture the effects of a time-varying term premium on the term spread, the paper relies on an empirically attractive affine Gaussian dynamic term structure model which assumes that the term structure of interest rates is spanned by three unobserved state variables. To retrieve accurate values of these variables from interest rates series, the paper suggests a new method which can overcome the effects of measurement (or pricing) errors inherent in these series on the estimates of the model. This method is assessed by a Monte Carlo study. Ignoring these errors will lead to biased estimates of term structure models. The empirical results of the paper provide support for the suggested term structure model. They show that this model can efficiently capture the time-varying term premium effects embodied in long-term interest rates, which can explain the failures of term spread to forecast future changes in long-term rates.

scholarly journals A Structural Measure of the Shadow Federal Funds Rate

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (064) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Callum Jones ◽  
◽  
Mariano Kulish ◽  
James Morley ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rate ◽  
Lower Bound ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
Federal Funds Rate ◽  
Interest Rate Policy ◽  
Rate Policy ◽  
Structural Measure

We propose a shadow policy interest rate based on an estimated structural model that accounts for the zero lower bound. The lower bound constraint, if expected to bind, is contractionary and increases the shadow rate compared to an unconstrained systematic policy response. By contrast, forward guidance and other unconventional policies that extend the expected duration of zero-interest-rate policy are expansionary and decrease the shadow rate. By quantifying these distinct effects, our structural shadow federal funds rate better captures the stance of monetary policy given economic conditions than a shadow rate based only on the term structure of interest rates.

Disappointment Aversion, Term Structure, and Predictability Puzzles in Bond Markets

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Augustin ◽  
Roméo Tédongap
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Dynamic Equilibrium ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
State Variables ◽  
Expectations Hypothesis ◽  
Macroeconomic Uncertainty ◽  
Disappointment Aversion ◽  
Nominal Interest Rates ◽  
Continuous State

We solve a dynamic equilibrium model with generalized disappointment-aversion preferences and continuous state-endowment dynamics. We apply the framework to the term structure of interest rates and show that the model generates an upward-sloping term structure of nominal interest rates and a downward-sloping term structure of real interest rates and that it accounts for the failure of the expectations hypothesis. The key ingredients are preferences with disappointment aversion, preference for early resolution of uncertainty, and an endowment economy with three state variables: time-varying macroeconomic uncertainty, time-varying expected inflation, and inflation uncertainty. This paper was accepted by Karl Diether, finance.

scholarly journals How Important Are Inflation Expectations for the Nominal Yield Curve?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Gomez-Cram ◽  
Amir Yaron
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Volatility ◽  
Term Structure ◽  
Yield Curve ◽  
Bond Market ◽  
Inflation Expectations ◽  
Real Rate ◽  
Risk Premiums ◽  
Expected Inflation ◽  
Bond Yield ◽  
Bond Risk

Abstract Macrofinance term structure models rely too heavily on the volatility of expected inflation news as a source for variations in nominal bond yield shocks. We develop and estimate a model featuring inflation nonneutrality and preference shocks. The stochastic volatility of inflation and consumption govern bond risk premiums movements, whereas preference shocks generate fluctuations in real rates. The model accounts for key bond market features without resorting to an overly dominating expected inflation channel. The estimation shows that preference shocks are strongly negatively correlated with market distress factors and that real rate news is the dominant driver of nominal yield shocks.

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