Suchergebnisse

This paper advances a pricing model for inflation linked bonds. Our proposal is developed starting from a Vasicek model of the instantaneous inflation rate process (Vasicek, 1977) and the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (CIR) model for the nominal instantaneous risk-free interest rate process (Cox, Ingersoll, Ross, 1985). Instead of adopting the standard approach of a cross-section estimation of the term structure of real interest rates, this work proposes a pricing model based on the estimation of inflation risk premium. The model is applied to Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS's), which are inflation linked bonds issued by the U. S. Department of the Treasury. Empirical validation is carried out on data in the period 1999-2005.

This doctoral dissertation consists of three chapters on the pricing of sovereign debt and inflation-linked products. The first chapter examines the relative pricing of nominal and inflation-linked debt of the three largest Eurozone sovereign issuers. Its main contribution is to present evidence of a selective default premium in real bond yields. The second chapter shifts its focus to the US inflation-linked product markets and quantifies liquidity premium in TIPS and inflation swap rates. The size of this compensation for exposure to asset level and liquidity risk helps to explain a large part of the TIPS-Treasury puzzle. The third chapter studies whether nominal bond markets are segmented across different maturities and contributes to the policy discussion on long term discount rates of the Solvency II Directive of the European Union.