On the Non-existence of Privately Issued Index Bonds in the United States Capital Market

‘Why, if both borrower and lender benefit from them, [does] an index loan market... not develop spontaneously and without any government initiative'? This question, asked by Professor Arvidsson at the I.E.A. conference on inflation in 1962, ² provides the major theme for the present paper which pursues in some detail possible reasons for the non-existence of privately issued index bonds in the United States.