IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rba/rbardp/rdp9204.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Term Structure of Interest Rates, Real Activity and Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Philip Lowe

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

Abstract

This paper examines, both theoretically and empirically, the relationship between the slope of the yield curve and future changes in real activity and inflation. It argues that the existence of sticky prices allows current and expected future monetary shocks to affect the slope of both the nominal and the real yield curves. Changes in real money balances brought about by monetary policy cause a strong liquidity effect at the short end of the yield curve. This results in changes in real output in the short/medium term which eventually get translated into changes in prices. The empirical results show that the spread between the 10 year Treasury bond and the 180 day bank bill predict the rate of change, over the subsequent one to two years, of a number of measures of real activity. Over both longer and shorter forecast horizons the spread has little predictive power. On the inflation front, the 10 year-180 day yield spread provides significant information about changes in inflation over the medium term (that is between one year and two and three years). Yield spreads between shorter dated securities are found to contain little information concerning future changes in inflation. This supports the view that at the shorter end of the yield curve changes in nominal rates often reflect changes in real rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip Lowe, 1992. "The Term Structure of Interest Rates, Real Activity and Inflation," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9204, Reserve Bank of Australia.
  • Handle: RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp9204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/1992/pdf/rdp9204.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frederic S. Mishkin, 1989. "A Multi-Country Study of the Information in the Term Structure about Future Inflation," NBER Working Papers 3125, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Cara S. Lown, 1994. "An Indicator of Future Inflation Extracted from the Steepness of the Interest Rate Yield Curve Along Its Entire Length," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 517-530.
    3. Kydland, Finn E. & Prescott, Edward C., 1988. "The workweek of capital and its cyclical implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 343-360.
    4. Ben S. Bernanke, 1990. "On the predictive power of interest rates and interest rate spreads," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 51-68.
    5. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    6. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    7. Mishkin, Frederic S., 1991. "A multi-country study of the information in the shorter maturity term structure about future inflation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 2-22, March.
    8. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Khurshid Kiani, 2011. "Fluctuations in Economic and Activity and Stabilization Policies in the CIS," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 193-220, February.
    2. Stephanos Papadamou, 2009. "Yield spreads and real economic activity in East European transition economies," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(5), pages 531-537.
    3. Valadkhani, Abbas, 2004. "Does the Term Structure Predict Australia's Future Output Growth?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 121-144, September.
    4. Joseph Atta-Mensah & Greg Tkacz, 1998. "Predicting Canadian Recessions Using Financial Variables: A Probit Approach," Staff Working Papers 98-5, Bank of Canada.
    5. David McMillan, 2002. "Interest rate spread and real activity: evidence for the UK," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 191-194.
    6. J.D. Hollingworth, 1997. "Leading Indicators of Australian Recessions: Part 2," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 97-17, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    7. Tony Makin, 1998. "A New Rule for Monetary Policy," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 17-24.
    8. Malcolm Edey & John Romalis, 1996. "Issues in Modelling Monetary Policy," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9604, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Chay Fisher & Bruce Felmingham, 1998. "The Australian yield curve as a leading indicator of consumption growth," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(6), pages 627-635.
    10. Nicolas de Roos & Bill Russell, 1996. "Towards an Understanding of Australia’s Co-movement with Foreign Business Cycles," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9607, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Daniel Daugaard & Tom Valentine, 1993. "Bank Share Prices and Profitability," Working Paper Series 31, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    12. A. Mansur & M. Masih & Vicky Ryan, 2005. "The term structure of interest rates in Australia: an application of long run structural modelling," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(8), pages 557-573.

    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. Hamilton, James D & Kim, Dong Heon, 2002. "A Reexamination of the Predictability of Economic Activity Using the Yield Spread," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 340-360, May.
    2. Andrea Nobili, 2005. "Forecasting Output Growth And Inflation In The Euro Area: Are Financial Spreads Useful?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 544, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Hardouvelis, Gikas & Malliaropoulos, Dimitrios, 2004. "The Yield Spread as a Symmetric Predictor of Output and Inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4314, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Gerlach, Stefan, 2003. "Interpreting the term structure of interbank rates in Hong Kong," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 11(5), pages 593-609, November.
    5. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1995. "The Term Structure of Interest Rates and Its Role in Monetary Policy for The European Central Bank," NBER Working Papers 5279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert & Wei, Min, 2007. "Do macro variables, asset markets, or surveys forecast inflation better?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1163-1212, May.
    7. James H. Stock & Mark W.Watson, 2003. "Forecasting Output and Inflation: The Role of Asset Prices," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 788-829, September.
    8. Langfeldt, Enno, 1994. "Die Zinsstruktur als Frühindikator für Konjunktur und Preisentwicklung in Deutschland," Kiel Working Papers 615, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Modena, Matteo, 2008. "The term structure and the expectations hypothesis: a threshold model," MPRA Paper 9611, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues & Sebastian Schich, 2003. "How Stable is the Predictive Power of the Yield Curve? Evidence from Germany and the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 629-644, August.
    11. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika & Wei, Min, 2006. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 359-403.
    12. Tkacz, Greg, 2004. "Inflation changes, yield spreads, and threshold effects," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-199.
    13. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1998. "Predicting U.S. Recessions: Financial Variables As Leading Indicators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 45-61, February.
    14. Morell, Joseph, 2018. "The decline in the predictive power of the US term spread: A structural interpretation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 314-331.
    15. Leo Krippner, 2005. "Investigating the Relationships between the Yield Curve, Output and Inflation using an Arbitrage-Free Version of the Nelson and Siegel Class of Yield Curve Models," Working Papers in Economics 05/02, University of Waikato.
    16. Harald Grech, 2004. "What Do German Short-Term Interest Rates Tell Us About Future Inflation?," Working Papers 94, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    17. Petra Gerlach-Kristen, 2007. "Three aspects of the Swiss term structure: an empirical survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 21(2), pages 221-240, June.
    18. Hibiki Ichiue, 2004. "Why Can the Yield Curve Predict Output Growth, Inflation, and Interest Rates? An Analysis with an Affine Term Structure Model," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 04-E-11, Bank of Japan.
    19. Ivanova, Detelina & Lahiri, Kajal & Seitz, Franz, 2000. "Interest rate spreads as predictors of German inflation and business cycles," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 39-58.
    20. Abdul Majid, Muhamed Zulkhibri, 2011. "Predicting Output and Inflation in Less Developed Financial Markets Using the Yield Curve: Evidence from Malaysia," MPRA Paper 29039, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    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:rba:rbardp:rdp9204. 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: Paula Drew (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbagvau.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.