Bond Vigilantes and Inflation

B-Tier
Journal: International Journal of Central Banking
Year: 2018
Volume: 14
Issue: 2
Pages: 263-300

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between inflation and the existence of a local, nominal, publicly traded, longmaturity, domestic currency bond market. Domestic bond markets have an unclear effect on inflation; they present issuing governments with the opportunity to inflate away their debt obligations, but they also expose bondholders to capital losses through inflation, creating a potential anti-inflationary force. We ask whether the latter effect is apparent empirically. We use a panel of data, examining inflation before and after the introduction of a domestic bond market. Inflationtargeting countries with a bond market experience inflation at least 3 to 4 percentage points lower than those without one. This effect is economically and statistically significant; it is also insensitive to a variety of estimation strategies. In particular, we use a wide variety of political and fiscal instrumental variables to account for the potential endogeneity of domestic bond issuance. Moreover, we do not find a similar effect for indexed or foreign currency bonds.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ijc:ijcjou:y:2018:q:1:a:6
Journal Field
Macro
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-29