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Working Paper
Modeling Yields at the Zero Lower Bound: Are Shadow Rates the Solution?
Recent U.S. Treasury yields have been constrained to some extent by the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates. In modeling these yields, we compare the performance of a standard affine Gaussian dynamic term structure model (DTSM), which ignores the ZLB, and a shadow-rate DTSM, which respects the ZLB. We find that the standard affine model is likely to exhibit declines in fit and forecast performance with very low interest rates. In contrast, the shadow-rate model mitigates ZLB problems significantly and we document superior performance for this model class in the most recent period.
Working Paper
A Regime-Switching Model of the Yield Curve at the Zero Bound
This paper presents a regime-switching model of the yield curve with two states: a normal state and a zero-bound state for the case when the monetary policy target rate is stuck at the nominal zero bound, as the U.S. economy has been since December 2008. The model delivers estimates of the time-varying probability of exiting the zero-bound state and can be applied to generate outcome-contingent forecasts useful for portfolio stress tests. The results show that the probability of remaining in the zero-bound state has trended upward since 2009, with notable upticks following Federal Reserve ...
Journal Article
Internal risk models and the estimation of default probabilities
A major advancement in risk management among large financial institutions has been the development of internal risk models. The models encompass institutions' procedures and techniques for assessing portfolio risk. Commercial bank regulators in the U.S. and abroad have recognized that these "state of the art" risk-management tools provided a framework for addressing important shortfalls of current capital regulations. To that end, a key component of the new rules for bank capital regulation developed under the Basel II agreement allows for banks' internal risk-management systems to be part of ...
Working Paper
The TIPS Liquidity Premium
We introduce an arbitrage-free term structure model of nominal and real yields that accounts for liquidity risk in Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS). The novel feature of our model is to identify liquidity risk from individual TIPS prices by accounting for the tendency that TIPS, like most fixed-income securities, go into buy-and-hold investors’ portfolios as time passes. We find a sizable and countercyclical TIPS liquidity premium, which helps our model to match TIPS prices. Accounting for liquidity risk also improves the model’s ability to forecast inflation and match ...
Journal Article
Exploring the Safety Premium of Safe Assets
Investors are usually willing to pay a higher price, known as a premium, for a safe fixed-income asset in return for the convenience of its high quality and liquidity. A study of Swiss government bonds—widely considered to be extremely safe but not particularly liquid—can give some insights into how quality affects the premium. The large and variable safety premium of these bonds surged to persistently higher levels following the launch of the euro. However, subsequent large asset purchases by the European Central Bank depressed the safety premium.
Working Paper
A Portfolio Model of Quantitative Easing
This paper presents a portfolio model of asset price effects arising from central bank large-scale asset purchases, commonly known as quantitative easing (QE). Two financial frictions?segmentation of the market for central bank reserves and imperfect asset substitutability?give rise to two distinct portfolio effects. One derives from the reduced supply of the purchased assets. The other runs through banks? portfolio responses to the created reserves and is independent of the assets purchased. The results imply that central bank reserve expansions can affect long-term bond prices even in the ...
Journal Article
Do Adjustment Lags Matter for Inflation-Indexed Bonds?
Some governments sell bonds that protect against variation in inflation. Payments of these bonds are adjusted in response to official inflation measurements with a lag. Considering the effects of such lags could matter both for understanding market-based measures of inflation compensation and for governments deciding what type of inflation-indexed securities to issue. Analyzing pairs of U.K. bonds with almost identical maturities but different lags in inflation adjustment suggests that the lag length matters mainly close to maturity, when seasonality in the underlying price index plays a role.
Journal Article
When will the Fed end its zero rate policy?
U.S. Treasury yields and other interest rates increased in the months leading up to the Federal Reserve?s December 2013 decision to cut back its large-scale bond purchases. This increase in rates probably at least partly reflected changes in what bond investors expected regarding future monetary policy. Recent research on this episode tentatively suggests that investors moved earlier the date when they believed the Fed would exit its zero interest rate policy, even though Fed policymakers made few changes in their projections of appropriate monetary policy.
Journal Article
Inflation expectations and the risk of deflation
Predicting the course of inflation is one of the most important challenges facing monetary policymakers. Useful aids to such prediction are the measures of expected future inflation obtained from prices in government bond markets. An examination of recent inflation-indexed and non-indexed U.S. Treasury bond yields suggests that financial market participants believe that the probability of prolonged deflation has become fairly small.
Journal Article
TIPS liquidity, breakeven inflation, and inflation expectations
Estimating market expectations for inflation from the yield difference between nominal Treasury bonds and Treasury inflation-protected securities-a difference known as breakeven inflation-is complicated by the liquidity differential between these two types of securities. Currently, the extent to which liquidity plays a role in determining breakeven inflation remains contentious. Information from the market for inflation swaps provides a range for the possible liquidity premium in TIPS, which in turn suggests a range for estimates of inflation expectations that is well below the widely ...