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Why Does the Treasury Issue Tips? The Tips-Treasury Bond Puzzle

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  • Matthias Fleckenstein
  • Francis A. Longstaff
  • Hanno Lustig

Abstract

We show that the price of a Treasury bond and an inflation-swapped TIPS issue exactly replicating the cash flows of the Treasury bond can differ by more than $20 per $100 notional. Treasury bonds are almost always overvalued relative to TIPS. Total TIPS-Treasury mispricing has exceeded $56 billion, representing nearly eight percent of the total amount of TIPS outstanding. TIPS-Treasury mispricing is strongly related to supply factors such as Treasury debt issuance and the availability of collateral in the financial markets, and is correlated with other types of fixed-income arbitrages, These results pose a major puzzle to classical asset pricing theory. In addition, they raise the issue of why the Treasury issues TIPS, since in so doing it both gives up a valuable fiscal hedging option and leaves large amounts of money on the table.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Fleckenstein & Francis A. Longstaff & Hanno Lustig, 2010. "Why Does the Treasury Issue Tips? The Tips-Treasury Bond Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 16358, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16358
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    2. Jens H. E. Christensen & James M. Gillan, 2011. "A model-independent maximum range for the liquidity correction of TIPS yields," Working Paper Series 2011-16, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    3. Nguyen, Giang & Engle, Robert & Fleming, Michael & Ghysels, Eric, 2020. "Liquidity and volatility in the U.S. Treasury market," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 217(2), pages 207-229.
    4. Roger E. A. Farmer, 2012. "The effect of conventional and unconventional monetary policy rules on inflation expectations: theory and evidence," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 622-639, WINTER.
    5. Faust, Jon & Wright, Jonathan H., 2013. "Forecasting Inflation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2-56, Elsevier.
    6. Iryna Kaminska & Dimitri Vayanos & Gabriele Zinna, 2011. "Preferred-Habitat Investors and the US Term Structure of Real Rates," FMG Discussion Papers dp674, Financial Markets Group.
    7. Andrea Ajello & Luca Benzoni & Olena Chyruk & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2020. "Core and ‘Crust’: Consumer Prices and the Term Structure of Interest Rates," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(8), pages 3719-3765.
    8. Bryan Kelly & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2016. "Too-Systemic-to-Fail: What Option Markets Imply about Sector-Wide Government Guarantees," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1278-1319, June.
    9. John H. Cochrane, 2011. "Discount Rates," NBER Working Papers 16972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Cartea, Álvaro & Saúl, Jonatan & Toro, Juan, 2012. "Optimal portfolio choice in real terms: Measuring the benefits of TIPS," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 721-740.
    11. Annette Vissing-Jorgensen & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Long-term Interest Rates," 2011 Meeting Papers 1447, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Dong Lou & Hongjun Yan & Jinfan Zhang, 2013. "Anticipated and Repeated Shocks in Liquid Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(8), pages 1891-1912.
    13. Michael D. Bauer, 2015. "Inflation Expectations and the News," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 11(2), pages 1-40, March.
    14. Fontana, Alessandro & Scheicher, Martin, 2016. "An analysis of euro area sovereign CDS and their relation with government bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 126-140.
    15. Emmanuel Mamatzakis & Panos Remoundos, 2012. "What are the Driving Factors Behind the Rise of Spreads and CDS of Eurozone Sovereign Bonds? A Panel VAR Analysis," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Risk Management Institute, Singapore (ed.), Global Credit Review, chapter 5, pages 79-94, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Ang, Andrew & Longstaff, Francis A., 2013. "Systemic sovereign credit risk: Lessons from the U.S. and Europe," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(5), pages 493-510.
    17. Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Adrien Verdelhan, 2013. "The Wealth-Consumption Ratio," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(1), pages 38-94.
    18. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(2 (Fall)), pages 215-287.
    19. Stefan Waldenberger, 2015. "The affine inflation market models," Papers 1503.04979, arXiv.org.
    20. Michael J. Fleming & Neel Krishnan, 2012. "The microstructure of the TIPS market," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 18(Mar), pages 27-45.
    21. Boons, M.F., 2014. "Sorting out commodity and macroeconomic risk in expected stock returns," Other publications TiSEM 1ebdac58-bf37-499d-8835-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

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    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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