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In this paper, the author uses the term structure of nominal interest rates to construct estimates of agents' expectations of inflation over several medium-term forecast horizons. The Expectations Hypothesis is imposed together with the assumption that expected future real interest rates are given by current real rates. Under these maintained assumptions, it is possible to compare the nominal yields on two assets of different maturities and attribute the difference in nominal yields to differences in expected inflation over the two horizons (assuming a constant term premium). The results for the United States and Canada over the past several years suggest that there is a significant static element to agents' inflation expectations.
In this paper, we incorporate the term structure of interest rates in a standard inflation forecast targeting framework. Learning about the transmission process of monetary policy is introduced by having heterogeneous agents - i.e., the central bank and private agents - who have different information sets about the future sequence of short-term interest rates. We analyse inflation forecast targeting in two environments. One in which the central bank has perfect knowledge, in the sense that it understands and observes the process by which private sector interest rate expectations are generated, and one in which the central bank has imperfect knowledge and has to learn the private sector forecasting rule for short-term interest rates. In the case of imperfect knowledge, the central bank has to learn about private sector interest rate expectations, as the latter affect the impact of monetary policy through the expectations theory of the term structure of interest rates. Here, following Evans and Honkapohja (2001), the learning scheme we investigate is that of least-squares learning (recursive OLS) using the Kalman filter. We find that optimal monetary policy under learning is a policy that separates estimation and control. Therefore, this model suggests that the practical relevance of the breakdown of the separation principle and the need for experimentation in policy may be limited.
Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.
Many papers have documented the positive relationship between the slope of the yield curve and future real economic activity in different countries and different time periods. One explanation for this economic link is based on monetary policy. However, empirical evidence (Estrella and Hardouvelis, 1991; Plosser and Rouwenhorst, 1994; Estrella and Mishkin, 1997; Moersch, 1996a,b; Kozicki, 1997; Dotsey, 1998; Ivanova et al., 2000) has shown that monetary policy does not appear to be the only source of the predictive power of the term spread. Therefore, the spread reflects other economic conditions beyond actions taken by monetary authorities. According to Harvey (1988), the forecasting ability of the term spread on economic growth is due to the fact that interest rates reflect the expectations of investors about the future economic situation when deciding about their plans for consumption and investment. Harvey (1988) uses the Consumption-Based Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM) to derive a forecasting equation that relates the slope of the term structure of interest rates to expected consumption growth. Harvey's model has been tested in several countries using ex post consumption or output growth as proxies of expected consumption growth. This paper complements and extends the evidence of Harvey's model by testing it for the case of Spain and by using a measure of expected consumption growth rather than proxies for the investors' expectations. The variables used are the Consumer Confidence Indicator and the Economic Sentiment Indicator (elaborated by the European Commission) that directly stand for the expectations of economic agents about the future economic situation in the next twelve months.