This paper examines empirically what the term structure of interest rates tells us about future inflation. The evidence indicates that the information in the term structure about the future path of inflation is quite different at the shortest end of the term structure (maturities six months or...

This paper provides some refinements and updating of Fama's (1984) evidence on the information in the term structure about future spot interest rate movements. First, it uses econometric techniques that properly correct standard errors for overlapping data and for conditional heteroscedasticity....

Understanding the behavior of real interest rates is a central issue in monetary/macro economics. Recently researchers have begun to use futures market data to examine real interest rate behavior. Futures market data can be used to directly construct own-commodity real interest rates ? i.e., the...

This paper attempts to provide a perspective on the causes of inflation by exploring why sustained inflations occur and the role of monetary policy in the inflation process. The conclusion reached in this paper is that in the last ten years there has been a convergence of views in the economics...

The proposition that real rates are equal across countries is worth studying because it is central to our understanding of open economy macroeconomics and because it is also an important issue to policy makers. If it is true, then domestic monetary authorities have no control over their real...

How real interest rates behave over time is critical to our understanding of many macroeconomic issues, and much recent research has pursued this question. Very little of the research, however, has focused on real interest rates outside the United States. This paper is an empirical exploration...

A heated debate has arisen over what Modigliani has dubbed the Macro Rational Expections (MRE) hypothesis. This hypothesis embodies two component hypotheses: 1) rational expectations and 2) short-run neutrality -- i.e., that anticipated changes in aggregate demand will have already been taken...

The impact of a money stock increase on nominal short-term interest rates has been a hotly debated issue in the monetary economics literature. The most commonly held view -- also a feature of most structural macro models--has an increase in the money stock leading, at least in the short-run, to...

This paper is an empirical exploration of real interest rate movements in the United States over the last fifty years. It focuses on several questions which have repeatedly arisen in the literature. How valid is the hypothesis associated with Fama (1975) that the real rate of interest is...