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Seoul Journal of Economics
[ Article ]
Seoul Journal of Economics - Vol. 27, No. 4, pp.391-419
ISSN: 1225-0279 (Print)
Print publication date 30 Nov 2014
Received 24 Sep 2014 Revised 13 Oct 2014 Accepted 14 Oct 2014

Inflation Targeting and Predictive Power of Term Spreads

Seonghoon Cho ; Jiyoung Lee
Associate professor, School of Economics, Yonsei University, 134, Shinchon-Dong, Seodaemun-Gu, Seoul, 120-749, Korea, Tel: 82-2-2123-2470, Fax: 82-2-393-1158 sc719@yonsei.ac.kr
School of Economics, Yonsei University, 134, Shinchon-Dong, Seodaemun-Gu, Seoul, 120-749, Korea team210@yonsei.ac.kr

JEL Classification: E52, E58, G12

Abstract

Many studies have investigated the predictive contents of the term spreads for future inflation and real activity since the 1990s, which was the time when some countries adopted inflation targeting (IT). As notable as the number of studies are the diversity and heterogeneity of the empirical findings on this issue across countries and over time. In this paper, we attempt to assess whether IT is responsible for the changes in the forecasting power of the term spreads for inflation. If future inflation is anchored to the target rate under an IT regime, then changes in the spread would contain information other than the future inflation, thereby reducing the predictive contents for future inflation. We test this hypothesis by (1) comparing the forecasting power of the term spread for inflation in a group of inflation-targeting countries before and after adopting IT and (2) comparing this power with the forecasting power in a group of countries that have not adopted IT. Findings support the hypothesis overall, but results are weakened when the interest rate is included in the forecasting equation.

Keywords:

Inflation targeting, Term spread, Predictability, Monetary policy

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