Inflation-linked bonds reasons

We have sketched out a couple of reasons why governments issue index-linked bonds already. We also said how the removal of inflation risk is valuable for the borrower, as it is for the investor, and earlier we described how in some countries rampant inflation resulted in a complete loss of investor confidence in nominal government debt, requiring the creation of an inflation-linked bond market out of necessity. However, there are other arguments why governments should issue linkers, and the reasons already given need to be added to, expanded upon and broken down into different subarguments. 

In April 1999 the SNDO launched two new linkers, a new 30-year bond (3104, 3.5% 2028) and a new 16-year bond (3105, 3.5% 2015). These two bonds were issued with an inflation floor, meaning that the new bonds had a similar structure to United States and French inflation-indexed bonds. The format of issuing inflation linked bonds was changed, this time moving back to bid price auctions, every three months. The reason being that this type of auction was common at the international level, allowing clearer signals of the volume on offer. The primary dealers were permitted to switch linkers directly with the SNDO on a daily basis, in order to enhance the liquidity of the market. 

On a hold-to-maturity basis, as we ve said, inflation-linked government bonds provide as close an approximation to a guaranteed real return as is currently available. If we can assume the government is credit risk-free, then there remain only two modest reasons for us to couch the above statement with the cautionary nse of the word approximation. There will inevitably always be a small conpon reinvestment risk and also a small degree of real value uncertainty becanse of the indexation lag. 

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