In recent years, members of Congress and academia have repeatedly urged the U.S. Treasury to issue some portion of its debt in the form of inflation indexed bonds. With an indexed bond, the interest and maturity value are adjusted by the rate of inflation over the life of the bond. Because the...

In 1997, the U.S. Treasury began the quarterly issuance of inflation indexed bonds, called Treasury Inflation Protection Securities (TIPS). So far, the Treasury has issued both 5-year and 10-year indexed bonds and will begin to issue 30-year indexed bonds and inflation indexed savings bonds in...

Using historical data from 1926 to 2002, the article shows that for investors with very long horizons,(longer than 25 years), stocks were safer in the U.S. than government bonds. For investors with shorter horizons, both stocks and bonds were exposed to substantial risks, and stocks did not...