On real interest rate persistence: the role of breaks |
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Authors: | Alfred A. Haug |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Economics, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealandalfred.haug@otago.ac.nz |
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Abstract: | The role of structural breaks in long spans of ex-post real interest rates for 10 industrialized countries is studied. First, the persistence of the real interest is assessed with newly proposed low-frequency tests of Müller and Watson (2008). Second, the test of Leybourne et al. (2007) for a change in persistence of a time series is applied to the real interest rate. The results show that real interest rates over the full sample period do not fit a covariance-stationary or unit-root model, nor a fractionally integrated, near-unit-root or local-level model. Instead, the persistence of real rates changes over time and there are periods when the real rate is covariance-stationary and other periods when it follows a unit-root process. |
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Keywords: | real interest rates persistence of a time series breaks in persistence |
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