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Working Paper
Bond Flows and Liquidity: Do Foreigners Matter?
In their search for yield in the current low interest rate environment, many investors have turned to sovereign debt in emerging economies, which has raised concerns about risks to financial stability from these capital flows. To assess this risk, we study the effects of changes in the foreign-held share of Mexican sovereign bonds on their liquidity premiums. We find that recent increases in foreign holdings of these securities have played a significant role in driving up their liquidity premiums. Provided the higher compensation for bearing liquidity risk is commensurate with the chance of a ...
Journal Article
TIPS and the risk of deflation
The low level of inflation and the sluggish pace of economic recovery have raised concerns about sustained deflation?an inflation rate below zero with a general fall in prices. However, the relative prices of inflation-indexed and non-indexed Treasury bonds, which historically have proven to be good measures of inflation expectations, suggest that financial market participants consider the probability of deflation to be low.
Journal Article
What’s Up with Inflation Expectations in Japan?
Both actual inflation and inflation expectations increased recently in Japan after decades of being undesirably low. An estimate based on nominal and real Japanese bond yields adjusted for liquidity and other risk premiums confirms that investors’ long-term inflation expectations have also increased. However, projections indicate that further increases are less likely and that long-term expected inflation in Japan is likely to remain anchored below the Bank of Japan’s 2% inflation target.
Journal Article
The Risk of Returning to the Zero Lower Bound
Following the global financial crisis, U.S. monetary policy was constrained by the zero lower bound for short-term interest rates for many years. It has since lifted off and rates have gradually climbed. However, in light of the continuing economic expansion, it is relevant to ask how likely it is for the lower bound on interest rates to again become a constraint on monetary policy. Analysis using several different approaches suggests that there currently appears to be a low risk of the economy returning to the zero lower bound for at least the next several years.
Journal Article
New Evidence for a Lower New Normal in Interest Rates
Interest rates during the current economic recovery have been unusually low. Some have argued that yields have been pushed down by declines in longer-run expectations of the normal inflation-adjusted short-term interest rate?that is, by a drop in the so-called equilibrium or natural rate of interest. New evidence from financial markets shows that a decline in this rate has indeed contributed about 2 percentage points to the general downward trend in yields over the past two decades.
Working Paper
Is There an On-the-Run Premium in TIPS?
In the U.S. Treasury market, the most recently issued, or so-called ?on-the-run,? security typically trades at a price above those of more seasoned but otherwise comparable securities. This difference is known as the on-the-run premium. In this paper, yield spreads between pairs of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) with identical maturities but of separate vintages are analyzed. Adjusting for differences in coupon rates and values of embedded deflation options, the results show a small, positive premium on recently issued TIPS - averaging between one and four basis points - that ...
Journal Article
Are Inflation Expectations Well Anchored in Mexico?
Price inflation has increased sharply since early 2021 in many countries, including Mexico. If sustained, high inflation in Mexico could raise questions about the ability of its central bank to bring inflation down to its 3% inflation target. However, analyzing the difference between market prices of nominal and inflation-indexed government bonds suggests investors’ long-term inflation expectations in Mexico are close to the central bank’s inflation target and are projected to remain so in coming years.
Working Paper
Inflation Expectations and Risk Premia in Emerging Bond Markets: Evidence from Mexico
To study inflation expectations and associated risk premia in emerging bond markets, thispaper provides estimates for Mexico based on an arbitrage-free dynamic term structuremodel of nominal and real bond prices that accounts for their liquidity risk. In addition todocumenting the existence of large and time-varying liquidity premia in nominal and realbond prices that are only weakly correlated, the results indicate that long-term inflationexpectations in Mexico are well anchored close to the inflation target of the Bank ofMexico. Furthermore, Mexican inflation risk premia are larger and more ...
Journal Article
Stress testing the Fed
The Federal Reserve has purchased a large amount of longer-term bonds since December 2008. While these purchases have helped support a strengthening economy, the Fed?s resulting financial position may incur significant declines in bond values and net income when interest rates rise. However, analyzing a range of possible future interest rate scenarios?and their associated probabilities?shows that potential losses associated with these declines are very likely to be manageable.
Working Paper
Accounting for Low Long-Term Interest Rates: Evidence from Canada
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 ...