Real Interest Rates, Inflation, and Default

Fabrizio Perri, Sewon Hur and Illenin Kondo

No 13388, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper argues that the comovement between inflation and economic activity is an important determinant of real interest rates over time and across countries. First, we show that for advanced economies, periods with more procyclical inflation are associated with lower real rates, but only when there is no risk of default on government debt. Second, we present a model of nominal sovereign debt with domestic risk-averse lenders. With procyclical inflation, nominal bonds pay out more in bad times, making them a good hedge against aggregate risk. In the absence of default risk, procyclical inflation yields lower real rates. However, procyclicality implies that the government needs to make larger (real) payments when the economy deteriorates, which could increase default risk and trigger an increase in real rates. The patterns of real rates predicted by the model are quantitatively consistent with those documented in the data.

Keywords: Inflation risk; Government debt; Nominal bonds; Sovereign default (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 F34 G12 H63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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