International Capital Flows and U.S. Interest Rates / Francis E. Warnock, Veronica Cacdac Warnock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Warnock, Francis E.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Warnock, Veronica Cacdac.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w12560.

NBER working paper series no. w12560

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.

Summary:

Foreign official purchases of U.S. government bonds have an economically large and statistically significant impact on long-term interest rates. Federal Reserve credibility, as evidenced by dramatic reductions in both long-term inflation expectations and the volatility of long rates, contributed much to the decline of long rates in the 1990s. More recently, however, foreign flows have become important. Controlling for various factors given by a standard macroeconomic model, we estimate that had there been no foreign official flows into U.S. government bonds over the past year, the 10-year Treasury yield would currently be 90 basis points higher. Our results are robust to a number of alternative specifications.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2006.