IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/japmet/v40y2025i2p231-236.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reassessing the Predictive Power of the Yield Spread for Recessions in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick J. Coe
  • Shaun P. Vahey

Abstract

Rudebusch and Williams (2009) predict recessions in the United States utilising a probit model with the lagged yield spread as a real‐time predictor. Mindful of the importance of recent yield curve movements, we update their analysis and evaluate quarterly forecasts from their probit model up to the end of 2023. We also analyze lagged financial conditions as an alternative real‐time predictor. We find that both the yield spread and financial conditions perform relatively well at the longer horizons considered by the experts in the Survey of Professional Forecasters.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick J. Coe & Shaun P. Vahey, 2025. "Reassessing the Predictive Power of the Yield Spread for Recessions in the United States," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(2), pages 231-236, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:japmet:v:40:y:2025:i:2:p:231-236
    DOI: 10.1002/jae.3106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.3106
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jae.3106?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lahiri, Kajal & Monokroussos, George & Zhao, Yongchen, 2013. "The yield spread puzzle and the information content of SPF forecasts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 219-221.
    2. Farmer, Leland E & Nakamura, Emi & Steinsson, Jón, 2024. "Learning about the Long Run," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0tn1s1hp, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    3. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Williams, John C., 2009. "Forecasting Recessions: The Puzzle of the Enduring Power of the Yield Curve," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 492-503.
    4. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    5. Tony Chernis & Patrick J. Coe & Shaun P. Vahey, 2023. "Reassessing the dependence between economic growth and financial conditions since 1973," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 260-267, March.
    6. Leland E. Farmer & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2024. "Learning about the Long Run," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(10), pages 3334-3377.
    7. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    8. Dean Croushore & Katherine Marsten, 2016. "Reassessing the Relative Power of the Yield Spread in Forecasting Recessions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 1183-1191, September.
    9. Francesco Furno & Domenico Giannone, 2024. "Nowcasting recession risk," Chapters, in: Michael P. Clements & Ana Beatriz Galvão (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Macroeconomic Forecasting, chapter 7, pages 156-186, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Chatterjee, Ujjal K., 2018. "Bank liquidity creation and recessions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 64-75.
    2. Lahiri, Kajal & Yang, Liu, 2013. "Forecasting Binary Outcomes," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1025-1106, Elsevier.
    3. Leo Krippner & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2009. "Forecasting New Zealand's economic growth using yield curve information," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2009/18, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    4. Sun, Jiandong & Feng, Shuaizhang & Hu, Yingyao, 2021. "Misclassification errors in labor force statuses and the early identification of economic recessions," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. 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.
    6. Davig, Troy & Hall, Aaron Smalter, 2019. "Recession forecasting using Bayesian classification," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 848-867.
    7. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2017. "Asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes: a survey," BIS Working Papers 676, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Pablo Aguilar & Jesús Vázquez, 2018. "Term structure and real-time learning," Working Papers 1803, Banco de España.
    9. Bluwstein, Kristina & Buckmann, Marcus & Joseph, Andreas & Kapadia, Sujit & Şimşek, Özgür, 2023. "Credit growth, the yield curve and financial crisis prediction: Evidence from a machine learning approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    10. Galvão, Ana Beatriz, 2013. "Changes in predictive ability with mixed frequency data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 395-410.
    11. Herman O. Stekler & Tianyu Ye, 2017. "Evaluating a leading indicator: an application—the term spread," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 183-194, August.
    12. 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.
    13. Chatterjee, Ujjal K., 2016. "Do stock market trading activities forecast recessions?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 370-386.
    14. , & Stein, Tobias, 2021. "Equity premium predictability over the business cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 16357, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Leo Krippner & Michelle Lewis, 2018. "Real-time forecasting with macro-finance models in the presence of a zero lower bound," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2018/04, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    16. Liu, Weiling & Moench, Emanuel, 2016. "What predicts US recessions?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1138-1150.
    17. Lahiri, Kajal & Yang, Liu, 2016. "Asymptotic variance of Brier (skill) score in the presence of serial correlation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 125-129.
    18. Guidolin, Massimo & Pedio, Manuela, 2019. "Forecasting and trading monetary policy effects on the riskless yield curve with regime switching Nelson–Siegel models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    19. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    20. Faria, Gonçalo & Verona, Fabio, 2023. "Forecast combination in the frequency domain," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 1/2023, Bank of Finland.

    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:wly:japmet:v:40:y:2025:i:2:p:231-236. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/ .

    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.