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Index-linked financial instruments can be used to infermarket-based measures of inflation expectations and realinterest rates. These measures have the advantage of being forward looking, timely and frequently updated fora range of maturities. They are regularly presented tothe Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to inform itsassessments of economic conditions.For some time the Bank has used the prices of index-linked and conventional bonds to derive real andnominal yield curves for the United Kingdom.
Andthese curves are used to infer a market-based measure of inflation expectations.
Recent developments ininternational index-linked markets have provided a largerset of market data. We can use this to derive a greaterrange of market-based measures, both for the UnitedKingdom and abroad. This facilitates analysis of impliedinflation expectations and real interest rates acrosscountries.The structure of the article is as follows. First, wedescribe developments in index-linked financial markets.Second, we outline how these developments provideadditional information. In particular, we show thatinflation swap rates can be used to infer market-basedmeasures of inflation expectations, and look at howincreased issuance of foreign index-linked bonds hasprovided additional information. The third sectiondiscusses the consistency between measures derivedfrom inflation swaps and index-linked bonds, both intheory and in practice. And the fourth sectionconsiderswhat the derived measures imply aboutexpectations for economic prospects. Of particularinterest to central banks are measures of markets’long-term inflation expectations, reflecting theirconfidence in the ability and determination of monetaryauthorities to control inflation. The final sectionsummarises and concludes.
Developmentsin index-linked markets
The inflation indexation of financial instruments datesback hundreds of years. But the development of largeinternational markets in government-issued index-linkeddebt started in the early 1980s, when the UnitedKingdom began issuing index-linked gilts. Governmentsof other industrialised countries also began to issueindex-linked bonds during the 1980s and 1990s. Inglobal terms index-linked markets remained relativelysmall with a reputation for poor liquidity. But themarket has grown significantly in recent years: thevalueof issued index-linked debt has more than doubledsince 2002 (Chart 1). This change reflects increasedissuance by the US Treasury, as well as governments of some other major countries starting to issueindex-linked bonds (notably Italy from 2003 and Japanfrom 2004).
New information from inflation swapsand index-linkedbonds
(1)For a full description of the Bank of England’s yield curve fitting techniques, see Anderson and Sleath (2001).Estimates of UK yield curves are published at www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/yieldcurve.(2)The derivation and interpretation of breakeven inflation from index-linked gilts is outlined in Scholtes (2002).
Prices of index-linked financial instruments can be used to obtain market-based measures of inflationexpectations and real interest rates. These measures are regularly used by the Bank’s Monetary PolicyCommittee to inform its assessment of economic conditions. In the United Kingdom, the index-linked gilt market is long established and has been used to infer such measures for many years. More recently,international index-linked markets have developed further, with increased issuance of index-linked bondsand greater use of index-linked derivatives. This article outlines how new market data provide usefuladditional information. We show that inflation swap rates can be used to estimate market expectationsof inflation, and how the larger range of information from index-linked markets facilitates analysis of market-based expectations for inflation and real interest rates across countries.
ByMatthew Hurd and Jon Relleen ofthe Bank’sMonetaryInstrumentsand MarketsDivision.
Newinformation from inflation swapsand index-linked bonds
During recent years, markets for inflation-linkedderivatives have also grown quickly. The largest is themarket for inflation swaps, which allow counterparties toexchange a fixed interest rate for payments linked toinflation.
(The structure of an inflation swap contractis outlined below.) The inflation swap market istransacted over-the-counter (OTC), rather than via anexchange, so comprehensive data on market activityarenot available. However, data from a large broker givean indication of how quickly trading activity hasincreased (Chart 2).
The growth of this marketresembles that of the interest rate swap market in theearly 1980s. And like that market, the size of theinflation swap market is not constrained by the supply of cash bonds, so the potential for further growth isunlimited.The euro area has the most active inflation swap market.An initial driver of this was Italian demand for productsdesigned to protect investors from high inflation. Theproviders of these products could use index-linkedbonds or inflation swaps to hedge their resultinginflation exposure. And as demand for the productsgrew, the inflation swap market was increasingly used forthis purpose. UK and US inflation swap markets haveseen increased activity during the past year or so. UKdemand is dominated by pension funds which havelong-term liabilities linked to inflation that they wouldlike to hedge.
Estimating market-based expectations— newpossibilities
These developments mean there now exists anincreasingly liquid global market in index-linked bondsand derivatives.
The greater range of index-linkedinstruments and increased market activity provideadditional market data. We can use this to derive alarger set of market-based measures of expectations of inflation and real interest rates than was previously thecase.It is important to mention that our derived measures arelikely to encapsulate more than just market participants’expectations. Market-based measures of inflationexpectations are also likely to incorporate inflation riskpremia, which investors demand as compensation foruncertainty about future inflation, andpossibly otherpremia related to institutional factors.
Likewise,derived real yields may contain risk premia and beaffected by institutional factors.
These caveats areimportant when using the curves to infer marketexpectations, as we do in the final section of this article.
Using marketrateson inflation swaps
An inflation swap is a bilateral contractual agreement. Itrequires one party (the ‘inflation payer’) to makeperiodic floating-rate payments linked to inflation, inexchange for predetermined fixed-rate payments from a
Chart2Notionalvalue ofinflation swapstraded
05101520Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4200102030405£ billionsQuarterly notional value of UK andeuro-area inflation swaps tradedSource: ICAP estimates.
(1)Transactions in other index-linked derivatives, such as options and futures, are becoming more common and thesemarkets are likely to expand significantly over time.(2)Data are only for UK and euro-area contracts and do not include trades between banks and clients. ICAP’s marketshare is subject to variation.(3)Trading volumes are much lower than those for conventional government bonds or nominal interest rate swaps butthose markets are the most deep and liquid in the world.(4)See Scholtes (2002) for a detailed description.(5)See ‘Interpreting long-term forward rates’,
, Winter 2005, page 418.
Chart1The size ofindex-linked bond markets
050100150200250300350199095200005£ billionsOutstanding index-linked debtissued by G7 governments(a) Source: Reuters.(a)Excluding Germany.
BankofEngland QuarterlyBulletin:
second party (the ‘inflation receiver’). Inflation swapcontracts are arranged OTC so the pay-off structure canbe matched to the needs of the counterparty. Hence avariety of contracts are traded, incorporating differentcash-flow structures and/or added characteristics suchas floors and caps.
However, the most common is thezero-coupon inflation swap. This has the most basicstructure with payments exchanged only on maturity.The zero-coupon inflation swap has become thestandard contract for which rates are quoted in thewholesale market by brokers, and is the data source weuse here.
The rates observed represent the fixed ratepaid by the inflation receiver — that is, the fixed rateagents are willing to pay (receive) in order to receive(pay) the cumulative rate of inflation during the life of the swap. Hence the quoted rate, termed the breakeveninflation rate, will depend on expected inflation over thelife of the swap (as well as any risk premia). Thus we canuse the quoted rate to derive market-based measures of expectations for inflation.The box outlines how we can then estimate an inflationforward curve from zero-coupon inflation swap rates.Having estimated an inflation curve we can also derive areal interest rate curve, on the basis that a nominal yieldcan be decomposed into a real yield and an inflationcomponent. Hence we deduct the inflation forwardcurve from a separately estimated nominal forward curveto obtain a real forward curve.
UKinflation forward curves
Potentially inflation swaps offer information beyond thatprovided by index-linked bond markets, even for theUnited Kingdom which has a long-establishedindex-linked bond market. This is because our ability toestimate curves using bonds depends on the number of bonds available and the range and dispersal of theirmaturities. Both will change over time. However, forinflation swaps we observe daily quoted rates forcontracts with a wide range of maturities that are evenlyspread. For the United Kingdom, maturities range fromone to 25 years.
And there are contracts for each yearup to ten years and subsequently for maturities of 12,15, 20 and 25 years.The additional information allows us to derive UKinflation and real curves that begin at short horizons, asUK inflation swaps offer a measure which starts at aboutten months.
In contrast, the shortest index-linked giltincluded in our curve estimation matures in October2009, more than three years hence.
One caveat hereis that short-dated contracts are the least traded UKinflation swaps (market factors are discussed later).Chart 3 compares UK curves derived from inflationswaps and from index-linked and nominal bonds.Between three and ten years the curves are virtuallyidentical. At the longest horizons the curves divergesomewhat with the curve derived from inflation swapsbeing slightly higher than the curve derived fromindex-linked bonds. (The consistency of the twomeasures is discussed below.)
Internationalbreakeven inflation curves
We are also able to derive a range of internationalcurves. This follows recent issuance of US and euro-areaindex-linked bonds, together with the development of international inflation swap markets.
Cash-flow structure ofzero-coupon inflation swap of maturity T years
Fixed leg = (1 + fixed rate)
T x Nominal valueInflation leg = (Final price index/Starting price index) x Nominal valueCounterparty A
Inflation receiver Counterparty B
Inflation payer (1)For explanations of some common inflation swap structures see ‘Inflation-protected bonds and swaps’,
,Summer 2004, pages 124–25. Greater detail and other examples can be found in Deacon
(2004).(2)Our data are composite series from Bloomberg that incorporate rates available across a selection of brokers.(3)A few brokers quote longer maturities, up to 50 years.(4)The one-year contract less the two-month indexation lag.(5)The curve is evaluated at the bond maturity minus the lag length.
Chart3UKinflation forward curve for 21 February2006
012340510152025Per centInflation swapsMaturity (years)Index-linked giltsSources: Bank of England and Bloomberg.
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