IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10118.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inflation Hedging on Main Street? Evidence from Retail TIPS Fund Flows

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Nagel
  • Zhen Yan

Abstract

Households participating in financial markets pay attention to inflation news when making their investment decisions, even in an environment of mostly low and stable inflation. ETFs and open-ended mutual funds holding Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) receive inflows from retail investors, and nominal Treasury ETF experience outflows, when long-horizon market-based inflation expectations measures increase. Changes in household survey expectations or in measures of inflation uncertainty do not contribute much in explaining retail TIPS fund flows. Retail flows into TIPS funds are asymmetric, with strong reactions only to positive inflation news, and sticky, with ow responses to news gradually playing out over several months. Retail investors appear to pay some attention to regular Federal Reserve announcements, but major events such as the “taper tantrum” in May 2013, the presidential election in November 2016, and the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020 are associated with particularly large retail TIPS fund flows.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Nagel & Zhen Yan, 2022. "Inflation Hedging on Main Street? Evidence from Retail TIPS Fund Flows," CESifo Working Paper Series 10118, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10118.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Armantier & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2015. "Inflation Expectations And Behavior: Do Survey Respondents Act On Their Beliefs?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(2), pages 505-536, May.
    2. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kumar, Saten & Pedemonte, Mathieu, 2020. "Inflation expectations as a policy tool?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    3. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    4. Campbell, John Y, 2000. "Comment on Low Inflation: The Behavior of Financial Markets and Institutions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(4), pages 1088-1092, November.
    5. Rüdiger Bachmann & Tim O. Berg & Eric R. Sims, 2015. "Inflation Expectations and Readiness to Spend: Cross-Sectional Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 1-35, February.
    6. Baqaee, David Rezza, 2020. "Asymmetric inflation expectations, downward rigidity of wages, and asymmetric business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 174-193.
    7. Ricardo Reis, 2021. "Losing the Inflation Anchors," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 52(2 (Fall)), pages 307-379.
    8. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    9. Malmendier, Ulrike M. & Botsch, Matthew J., 2020. "The Long Shadows of the Great Inflation: Evidence from Residential Mortgages," CEPR Discussion Papers 14934, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    11. Olivier Armantier & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Giorgio Topa & Wilbert Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2015. "Inflation Expectations And Behavior: Do Survey Respondents Act On Their Beliefs?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 505-536, May.
    12. Jank, Stephan, 2012. "Mutual fund flows, expected returns, and the real economy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3060-3070.
    13. Binder, Carola, 2017. "Fed speak on main street: Central bank communication and household expectations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 238-251.
    14. Ricardo Reis, 2020. "The People versus the Markets: A Parsimonious Model of Inflation Expectations," Discussion Papers 2033, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pooja Kapoor & Sujata Kar, 2023. "A review of inflation expectations and perceptions research in the past four decades: a bibliometric analysis," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 279-302, May.
    2. Andrade, Philippe & Gautier, Erwan & Mengus, Eric, 2023. "What matters in households’ inflation expectations?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 50-68.
    3. Dräger, Lena & Lamla, Michael J. & Pfajfar, Damjan, 2020. "The Hidden Heterogeneity of Inflation and Interest Rate Expectations: The Role of Preferences," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-666, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, revised Feb 2023.
    4. Martin Geiger & Johann Scharler, 2021. "How Do People Interpret Macroeconomic Shocks? Evidence from U.S. Survey Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(4), pages 813-843, June.
    5. Lena Dräger & Michael J. Lamla, 2024. "Consumers' macroeconomic expectations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 427-451, April.
    6. Michael Weber & Francesco D'Acunto & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2022. "The Subjective Inflation Expectations of Households and Firms: Measurement, Determinants, and Implications," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 157-184, Summer.
    7. Bernardo Candia & Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2020. "Communication and the Beliefs of Economic Agents," NBER Working Papers 27800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Carola Binder, 2021. "Presidential antagonism and central bank credibility," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 244-263, July.
    9. Binder, Carola Conces, 2022. "Time-of-day and day-of-week variations in Amazon Mechanical Turk survey responses," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    10. Damjan Pfajfar & Fabian Winkler, 2024. "Households' Preferences Over Inflation and Monetary Policy Tradeoffs," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-036, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Gabriele Galati & Richhild Moessner & Maarten van Rooij, 2021. "Anchoring of consumers’ long-term euro area inflation expectations during the pandemic," Working Papers 715, DNB.
    12. Dmitri V. Vinogradov & Michael J. Lamla & Yousef Makhlouf, 2024. "Survey-based expectations and uncertainty attitudes," Working Papers 2024_02, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    13. Patrick Hirsch & Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler, 2023. "Breaking Monetary Policy News: The Role of Mass Media Coverage of ECB Announcements for Public Inflation Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 10285, CESifo.
    14. Carola Binder & Alex Rodrigue, 2018. "Household Informedness and Long‐Run Inflation Expectations: Experimental Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(2), pages 580-598, October.
    15. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2024. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public: Promise or False Hope?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 425-457, June.
    16. Theresa Kuchler & Monika Piazzesi & Johannes Stroebel, 2022. "Housing Market Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 9665, CESifo.
    17. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Tambalotti, Andrea & Topa, Giorgio, 2022. "Subjective intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 118-133.
    18. Gabriele Galati & Richhild Moessner & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "The anchoring of long-term inflation expectations of consumers: insights from a new survey," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 96-116.
    19. repec:ecb:ecbdps:202424 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Francesco D’Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Michael Weber, 2022. "Managing Households’ Expectations with Unconventional Policies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 1597-1642.
    21. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2020. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts: A comparison with five categories of field expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inflation; market-based expectations; fund flows; inflation hedging;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_10118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.