A number of industrialized countries have recently offered inflation-indexed bonds. Some members of another group of countries that had earlier adopted more comprehensive indexation in response to high inflation have taken steps to reduce the scope of indexation in their economies. This paper surveys debt management, monetary policy, and welfare arguments on the use of inflation-indexed bonds, and relates these to the experiences of various issuers. The paper also considers some important design features of indexed bonds.

Handbook of Inflation Indexed Bonds provides complete coverage of inflation protection bonds beginning with their first U.S. issuance in 1997. Five, in-depth sections detail: strategic asset allocation; mechanics, valuation, and risk monitoring; global environment; issuers; and investors.

This chapter provides an introduction to index-linked securities, including inflation-indexed securities such as TIPS issued by the U.S. government and index-linked gilts issued by the UK government. Basic concepts of bond purpose and design are described in summary, followed by a detailed look at inflation-linked bond yield analysis. This then enables us to look at the concept of the inflation term structure. The second half of the chapter considers inflation-linked derivatives such as inflation-linked bond swaps, year-on-year inflation swaps, and real annuity swaps, together with a look at the use of inflation derivatives for hedging purposes. This includes hedging pension liabilities and restructuring bond portfolios. We then review constructing the inflation term structure and pricing inflation derivatives.

In January 1997, the U.S. Treasury started issuing Treasury Inflation-Protection Securities (TIPS; hereafter TIPS and indexed bonds interchangeably) and, as of September 2002, a total of ten issues were being traded on the market, while one issue had already matured. The purpose of this paper is to attempt an evaluation of indexed bonds based on the record of five and a half years of market trading in TIPS, and to present the results as a reference for the issue of similar securities by the Japanese government in the future. The results of this paper are as follows: (1) Real interest rates are relatively stable and remain near the 4% mark. The 30 year bond is even more stable. (2) The expected inflation rate is more closely linked to realized CPI than to the real yield. However, the expected inflation rate is far more stable and its fluctuations smaller. In particular, the 30 year bond is steady, near the 2% mark. (3) While the economic information derived from the 10 year bond is strongly influenced by short-term economic fluctuations, the economic information derived from the 30 year bond is generally unresponsive to short-term economic fluctuations. (4) Examination of the derived information using econometric methods indicates that useful economic information was obtained from the following indexed bonds in the secondary markets: Series Three and Four 10 year bonds. Information included in the expected inflation rate was useful for the Series Three and Four 10 year bonds. Hence, while a total of eleven indexed bonds have been issued, very few of them have proven to be truly useful. These useful bonds turn out to have fair initial conditions, continuous arbitrages with the nominal bonds, and active trades in the secondary markets.

The global market for inflation-indexed securities has ballooned in recent years, and this trend is set to continue. This book examines the rationale behind issuance and investment decisions, and details the issues facing anyone who designs indexed securities, illustrating them wherever possible with actual examples from the international capital markets. In particular, an extensive review of indexed debt markets throughout the world is provided - including for the first time, a comprehensive and consistent set of cash flow and price-yield equations for the instruments already in existence in the major bond markets - forming an important reference for those already experienced in the field, as well as practitioners and academics approaching the subject for the first time. The book also provides unique insight into the development of inflation-indexed derivative products, and the analytical tools required to value such instruments.