IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/00171.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Information in the Yield Curve about Future Recessions

Author

Listed:
  • Michael D. Bauer
  • Thomas M. Mertens

Abstract

The ability of the Treasury yield curve to predict future recessions has recently received a great deal of public attention. An inversion of the yield curve?when short-term interest rates are higher than long-term rates?has been a reliable predictor of recessions. The difference between ten-year and three-month Treasury rates is the most useful term spread for forecasting recessions?without any adjustment for an estimate of the underlying term premium. However, such correlations in the data do not identify cause and effect, which complicates their interpretation.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael D. Bauer & Thomas M. Mertens, 2018. "Information in the Yield Curve about Future Recessions," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:00171
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/el2018-20.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adrian, Tobias & Crump, Richard K. & Moench, Emanuel, 2013. "Pricing the term structure with linear regressions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 110-138.
    2. Michael D. Bauer & Thomas M. Mertens, 2018. "Economic Forecasts with the Yield Curve," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bofinger, Peter & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Wieland, Volker, 2018. "Vor wichtigen wirtschaftspolitischen Weichenstellungen. Jahresgutachten 2018/19 [Setting the Right Course for Economic Policy. Annual Report 2018/19]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201819.
    2. Fernando Garcia Alvarado, 2022. "Detecting crisis vulnerability using yield spread interconnectedness," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 3864-3880, October.
    3. B. De Backer & M. Deroose & Ch. Van Nieuwenhuyze, 2019. "Is a recession imminent? The signal of the yield curve," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 69-93, June.
    4. Kajal Lahiri & Cheng Yang, 2023. "A tale of two recession-derivative indicators," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 925-947, August.
    5. Nicolas Himounet & Francisco Serranito & Julien Vauday, 2021. "Uncertainty is bad for Business. Really?," Working Papers 2021.03, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    6. Massimo Ferrari Minesso & Laura Lebastard & Helena Mezo, 2023. "Text-Based Recession Probabilities," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(2), pages 415-438, June.
    7. Kajal Lahiri & Cheng Yang, 2023. "ROC and PRC Approaches to Evaluate Recession Forecasts," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 19(2), pages 119-148, September.
    8. Alistair Macaulay & Wenting Song, 2022. "Narrative-Driven Fluctuations in Sentiment: Evidence Linking Traditional and Social Media," Economics Series Working Papers 973, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Matthieu Bussière & Stéphane Lhuissier, 2024. "What does an inversion of the yield curve tell us? [Que signifie l’inversion d’une courbe des taux ?]," Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 250.
    10. Sabes, David & Sahuc, Jean-Guillaume, 2023. "Do yield curve inversions predict recessions in the euro area?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    11. Harold M. Hastings & Tai Young-Taft & Thomas Wang, 2019. "When to Ease Off the Brakes--and Hopefully Prevent Recessions," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_929, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. Hauber, Philipp, 2019. "Zur Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Rezession in den Vereinigten Staaten," Kiel Insight 2019.14, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    13. Himounet, Nicolas, 2022. "Searching the nature of uncertainty: Macroeconomic and financial risks VS geopolitical and pandemic risks," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 1-31.
    14. Jaehyuk Choi & Desheng Ge & Kyu Ho Kang & Sungbin Sohn, 2021. "Yield Spread Selection in Predicting Recession Probabilities: A Machine Learning Approach," Papers 2101.09394, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    15. Christina Sklibosios Nikitopoulos & Alice Carole Thomas & Jianxin Wang, 2024. "Hedging pressure and oil volatility: Insurance versus liquidity demands," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 252-280, February.
    16. Kang, Boda & Nikitopoulos, Christina Sklibosios & Prokopczuk, Marcel, 2020. "Economic determinants of oil futures volatility: A term structure perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. Knut Lehre Seip & Dan Zhang, 2021. "The Yield Curve as a Leading Indicator: Accuracy and Timing of a Parsimonious Forecasting Model," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-16, May.
    18. Pyung Kun Chu, 2021. "Forecasting Recessions with Financial Variables and Temporal Dependence," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-14, August.
    19. Jos'e-Manuel Pe~na & Fernando Su'arez & Omar Larr'e & Domingo Ram'irez & Arturo Cifuentes, 2023. "A Modified CTGAN-Plus-Features Based Method for Optimal Asset Allocation," Papers 2302.02269, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    20. Joseph G. Haubrich, 2021. "Does the Yield Curve Predict Output?," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 341-362, November.
    21. Gern, Klaus-Jürgen & Hauber, Philipp & Kooths, Stefan & Stolzenburg, Ulrich, 2019. "Weltkonjunktur im Winter 2019 - Weltkonjunktur bleibt vorerst ohne Schwung [World Economy Winter 2019 - Global growth remains sluggish for the time being]," Kieler Konjunkturberichte 61, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. B. De Backer & M. Deroose & Ch. Van Nieuwenhuyze, 2019. "Is a recession imminent? The signal of the yield curve," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 69-93, June.
    2. Emanuel Kopp & Peter D. Williams, 2018. "A Macroeconomic Approach to the Term Premium," IMF Working Papers 2018/140, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Todd Henry & Peter C.B. Phillips, 2020. "Forecasting Economic Activity Using the Yield Curve: Quasi-Real-Time Applications for New Zealand, Australia and the US," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2259, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    4. Salman Huseynov, 2021. "Long and short memory in dynamic term structure models," CREATES Research Papers 2021-15, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    5. Luca Benzoni & Olena Chyruk & David Kelley, 2018. "Why Does the Yield-Curve Slope Predict Recessions?," Chicago Fed Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    6. Ye, Zhen & Zhang, Fangzhu & Coffman, D’Maris & Xia, Senmao & Wang, Zhifeng & Zhu, Zhonghua, 2022. "China’s urban construction investment bond: Contextualising a financial tool for local government," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    7. Tobias Adrian & Nellie Liang, 2018. "Monetary Policy, Financial Conditions, and Financial Stability," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(1), pages 73-131, January.
    8. Bandi, Federico M. & Bretscher, Lorenzo & Tamoni, Andrea, 2023. "Return predictability with endogenous growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    9. Cerutti, Eugenio M. & Obstfeld, Maurice & Zhou, Haonan, 2021. "Covered interest parity deviations: Macrofinancial determinants," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    10. Bu, Chunya & Rogers, John & Wu, Wenbin, 2021. "A unified measure of Fed monetary policy shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 331-349.
    11. Iryna Kaminska & Gabriele Zinna, 2020. "Official Demand for U.S. Debt: Implications for U.S. Real Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(2-3), pages 323-364, March.
    12. Abbritti, Mirko & Carcel, Hector & Gil-Alana, Luis & Moreno, Antonio, 2023. "Term premium in a fractionally cointegrated yield curve," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    13. Andreasen, Martin M. & Christensen, Bent Jesper, 2015. "The SR approach: A new estimation procedure for non-linear and non-Gaussian dynamic term structure models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 184(2), pages 420-451.
    14. Himounet, Nicolas, 2022. "Searching the nature of uncertainty: Macroeconomic and financial risks VS geopolitical and pandemic risks," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 1-31.
    15. Juan Andrés Espinosa-Torres & Luis Fernando Melo-Velandia & José Fernando Moreno-Gutiérrez, 2017. "Expectativas de inflación, prima de riesgo inflacionario y prima de liquidez: una descomposición del break-even inflation para los bonos del Gobierno colombiano," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, vol. 78, February.
    16. Peter Hooper & Frederic S. Mishkin & Amir Sufi, 2019. "Prospects for Inflation in a High Pressure Economy: Is the Phillips Curve Dead or is It Just Hibernating?," NBER Working Papers 25792, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Marcello Pericoli, 2019. "An assessment of recent trends in market-based expected iflation in the euro area," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 542, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    18. Ornelas, José Renato Haas & Mauad, Roberto Baltieri, 2019. "Volatility risk premia and future commodity returns," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 341-360.
    19. Gregor Boehl & Gavin Goy & Felix Strobel, 2024. "A Structural Investigation of Quantitative Easing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(4), pages 1028-1044, July.
    20. Edward N Gamber & Julie K Smith, 2020. "Monetary policy and the yield curve," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 407-424.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:00171. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.