Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/190112 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2018/63
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
The proposition that inflation expectations can be extracted as inflation predictions from the government bond yield curve has been tested, with partially positive results, using data from the United States and European countries. Despite the abundance of empirical studies of the proposition, relatively few of these studies relate to emerging markets, as most emerging markets lack bond markets with the liquidity, breadth, information availability, and range of maturities that would permit such studies. South Africa's highly developed capital markets do have such characteristics, warranting this study's examination of the proposition's validity for South Africa. Using South African time series data, we find strong evidence for the proposition that the slope of the yield curve, measured as a long- to short-term spread, contains information on the future path of inflation. Examining the sub-periods separated by the adoption, in 2000, of inflation targeting, we find that the monetary policy regime shift strengthened the relationship between the yield spread and future inflation. The results suggest that the yield spread can be used by policy makers and the private sector to help forecast inflation in South Africa.
Subjects: 
expectations
inflation
monetary policy
South Africa
term structure
yield spread
JEL: 
E31
E37
E52
G12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-505-3
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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