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Central bank independence and inflation expectations: evidence from British index-linked gilts

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  • Mark M. Spiegel

Abstract

This paper conducts a case study of the impact of the May 6, 1997, announcement of enhanced independence of the Bank of England on estimates of expected future inflation and real interest rates. These are generated from observed yields on conventional and index-linked British gilts. For the longest-term bonds in the study, we find a 34 and 60 bases point decline in expected average future inflation over the life of the bond for one-day and two-week event windows, respectively. These results support the contention that institutional changes alone do affect agents' inflationary expectations.

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  • Mark M. Spiegel, 1998. "Central bank independence and inflation expectations: evidence from British index-linked gilts," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 3-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfer:y:1998:p:3-14:n:1
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    Cited by:

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    2. Alexandros Kontonikas & Alberto Montagnoli, 2004. "Has Monetary Policy Reacted to Asset Price Movements? Evidence from the UK," Ekonomia, Cyprus Economic Society and University of Cyprus, vol. 7(1), pages 18-33, Summer.
    3. Aleksandra Maslowska, 2008. "Quest for the best: How to measure central bank independence and show its relation with inflation?," Discussion Papers 37, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    4. Eduard Hochreiter & Tadeusz Kowalski, 2000. "Central banks in European emerging market economies in the 1990s," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(212), pages 45-70.
    5. Kamal, Mona, 2010. "الإطار النظرى للتنسيق بين السياستين المالية والنقدية [The Theoretical Framework for the Coordination of Fiscal and Monetary Polices]," MPRA Paper 26856, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ms. JoAnne Morris & Mr. Tonny Lybek, 2004. "Central Bank Governance: A Survey of Boards and Management," IMF Working Papers 2004/226, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Thorsten Lehnert & Aleksandar Andonov & Florian Bardong, 2009. "TIPS, Inflation Expectations and the Financial Crisis," LSF Research Working Paper Series 09-09, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    8. Hermann Sintim-Aboagye, 2005. "Emerging Economies, Turnover Rates and Inflation Variability: A Comparison of Generalized Maximum Likelihood and SUR Models," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 167-178, June.
    9. Juan Angel Garcia & Adrian van Rixtel, 2007. "Inflation-linked bonds from a central bank perspective," Occasional Papers 0705, Banco de España.

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