Bank of England Working Papers - Abstracts 1994 (no. 22-27)

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The following are brief abstracts of working papers. Those papers that are out of print are marked as such (oop). For details of how to obtain copies of working papers, both in and out of print, see the Working Papers main page.

You can also view the full text of working papers 23 and 24 (from 1994) and working papers since 1997 as PDF files, readable with the latest version of Adobe Acrobat (this is available free from Adobe's Website ). The working papers are listed with the most recent papers first.

Working Paper No 27 (oop)
“Inflation, inflation risks and asset returns”
by Jo Corkish and David Miles

If low and stable inflation is maintained then the economic environment in the United Kingdom will be very different from any sustained period in the post-war era. This may have significant implications for financial markets: asset prices, the demand and supply for various types of financial contract, and the structure of financial intermediation are likely to be affected by a low inflationary environment. This paper examines the empirical evidence on the links between asset returns, inflation and inflation variability. The real returns on a range of financial and physical assets and are calculated a model of inflation expectations and inflation variability developed. The impact of anticipated inflation, inflation shocks and the variability of inflation on asset values are then estimated.

Working Paper No 26
“New currencies in the Former Soviet Union: a recipe for hyperinflation or the path to price stability”
by Chris Melliss and Mark Cornelius

This paper describes the break-up of the rouble zone after the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and the opportunities and risks involved in establishing separate currencies in the new republics of the FSU. Fundamental disagreements about the desirable pace of economic reform, together with the need for radical changes in the pattern of economic activity, greatly weakened the case for retention of a single currency. Also, by mid-1993, the reformers in Russia had realised that continued use of the rouble by the republics weakened the authorities' ability to control monetary developments.

The introduction of new currencies in countries lacking experience of economic policy making is bound to be a messy and uncertain process. The paper discusses the policy choices involved, in particular the appropriate exchange rate regime and the possible role for a currency board as a way of giving monetary policy credibility at an early stage in the transition. It concludes that bringing the fiscal position under control should be the first aim of policy for these countries. In the absence of bond markets deficits will tend to be money financed and the choice of exchange rate regime, by itself, is probably of second-order importance.

The paper concludes with seven case studies, including the Baltic States and the Ukraine. When the paper was written, some republics had inflation rates of 25% a month or more, and there seemed little prospect of a rapid fall. In fact performance has generally been rather better than then seemed likely. The main reasons for this seem to have been the absence of a 'flight-from-money' typical of Latin-American hyperinflation. Fiscal deficits have been kept under reasonable control, probably as a result of external pressure.

Working Paper No 25
“Potential credit exposure on interest rate swaps”
by Ian Bond, Gareth Murphy and Gary Robinson

An analytical analogue to the Monte Carlo techniques previously used by banking supervisors to assess the potential credit exposure of interest rate swaps is developed, which permits a more thorough examination of swap exposure. This is done by using the Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1985) one-factor model of the yield curve to generate interest rate paths from which swap credit exposure paths can be determined.

Even with such a relatively simple interest rate process, the patterns of credit exposure are found to be more complex than the supervisors previous techniques allow: they vary with the level of interest rates, the slope of the yield curve and the volatility of the short rate - all factors which are ignored in the supervisors risk measurement methodology - and have a significantly non-linear relationship with swap maturity. In conclusion, market traders and regulators need to be alert to these factors in determining the appropriate level of capital to hold as protection against counterparty default.

Working Paper No 24 (oop)
“Estimating the Term Structure of Interest Rates”
by Mark Deacon and Andrew Derry (1.9M)

This paper examines various techniques used to estimate the term structure of interest rates from the prices of government bonds; in particular comparing the current Bank of England model with two approaches suggested in the academic literature. There are two main aspects of this problem: estimating the relationship between bond yields and maturity, and the relationship between bond yields and coupon. The paper outlines how these problems are approached by the three models, and compares them on both theoretical and practical grounds. It concludes that there is a trade-off between theoretical rigour and practical considerations.

Working Paper No 23 (oop)
“Deriving Estimates of Inflation Expectations from the Prices of UK Government Bonds”
by Mark Deacon and Andrew Derry (1.2M)

Bonds with payments linked to the Retail Price Index were first issued in the United Kingdom in 1981 and now account for a significant proportion of the total UK government bond market. This paper discusses various methods by which prices of these indexed bonds can be compared with prices of conventional bonds to infer market expectations of future inflation, and in particular outlines the approach currently used to produce the inflation term structure published in the Bank of England's Inflation Report . There are a number of estimation difficulties - both theoretical and practical - in deriving such term structures and therefore a number of caveats that should be borne in mind when interpreting such measures of expectations.

Working Paper No 22
“A Model of Building Society Interest Rate Setting”
by Joanna Paisley

This paper examines the interest rate setting behaviour of building societies since the breakdown of the interest rate cartel in 1984. Societies have faced increasing competition in the mortgage and savings market over this period, against a backdrop of radical regulatory change.

The paper develops a profit-maximising model of societies on which econometric analysis is based. The empirical analysis indicates that libor drives the pricing on both sides of the balance sheet. The performance of the estimated equations was good, given the regulatory and behavioural change of the institutions and the turbulence of the housing market over this period. It is interesting that real side variables - such as house price volatility and unemployment - were found to be insignificant.