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April 2015 (April 3 – May 4, 2015)

In This Issue:
Banking and Financial Markets

Inflation and Prices

 FHA Lending Rebounds in Wake of Subprime
Crisis

 Cleveland Fed Estimates of Inflation
Expectations, April 2015

 Did Core Deposits Hedge Loan-Commitment
Risk during the Financial Crisis?

Monetary Policy

Households and Consumers
 Behind the Slow Pace of Wage Growth

 The Yield Curve and Predicted GDP Growth,
April 2015

Banking and Financial Markets

FHA Lending Rebounds in Wake of Subprime Crisis
04.14.2015
by Yuliya Demyanyk and Daniel Kolliner
During the Great Recession, lending standards
tightened, making it difficult for some borrowers to
get or refinance their mortgages. Several indicators
suggest that conditions have eased up, and credit
may be more available now. But since the financial
crisis was precipitated by lending standards that
were so loose that credit was extended even to borrowers who did not have the ability to pay it back,
there is heightened sensitivity to the possibility that
we could go too far again. In light of that concern,
we investigate the degree to which FHA lending is
being extended to creditworthy borrowers.
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is
a government agency that has been helping borrowers to obtain mortgage loans since 1934. The
FHA makes mortgage loans more accessible chiefly
by allowing qualified borrowers to provide lower
down payments. Traditional loans require a down
payment of up to 20 percent of a home’s purchase
price, while down payments for FHA-facilitated
loans can be as low as 3.5 percent. For this service,
the FHA charges a mortgage insurance premium
(MIP), which is calculated in terms of basis points
and is a percentage of the amount financed. The
premium—which is often interpreted as a measure of housing affordability—was around 50 basis
points before the crisis but rose steeply after it,
hitting 135 in 2013. In January 2015, the MIP rate
was lowered substantially, to 85 basis points.
Before the subprime mortgage boom, FHA loans
were an important source of credit for first-time
home buyers and borrowers with less than prime
credit ratings. In 2001, for example, 21.6 percent
of all new mortgage loans were backed by the FHA.
But in 2003, subprime loans began to take off, and
FHA lending began to decline. By 2005, subprime
loans represented 16.3 percent of the mortgage
market and FHA loans were down to 3.5 percent.
While the FHA was still offering favorable mortgage terms for qualified borrowers, subprime
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

2

lenders were offering a much easier and faster application process, at times with no down payment
requirement. When lending standards tightened
after the subprime market crashed in the middle
of 2007, three types of potential borrowers could
no longer obtain a mortgage loan: borrowers who
would have gotten a subprime loan had the subprime market continued to exist, borrowers with
subprime mortgages who needed to refinance into
loans with better terms, and borrowers who could
not afford large down payments but were otherwise
creditworthy.

Share of Originated Loans
Percent
40
30
20

Subprime
loans

10

FHA loans

0
2000

2005

2010

2014

Note: Shaded bars indicate recessions.
Sources: Black Knight Financial Services; 2007 Mortgage Market Statistical Annual;
authors’ calculations.

Share of Originated FHA Loans
by FICO Score
Percent
50
40

Near prime
Prime

30
Subprime
20
10
0

Deep
subprime
2000

2005

2010

2014

Note: Shaded bars indicate recessions.
Source: Black Knight Financial Services, authors’ calculations.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

To assist some of these underserved people, the
FHA began to increase its lending at the end of
2007, regaining market share which eventually
peaked at 43.8 percent of mortgage market originations in November of 2009. During this timeframe,
FHA-supported mortgage originations increased
more than 500 percent. After the recession, FHAsupported lending steadily declined to around
11 percent of all purchase mortgage originations,
where it remains.
An open question is which of the three types of
borrowers unable to get loans after 2007 is getting them now? Hopefully, credit conditions have
relaxed to the point where underserved but creditworthy borrowers are getting credit, and bad credit
risks are still being excluded. To answer this question, we check if the composition of after-crisis
FHA originations resembles the pre-crisis subprime
market in terms of borrowers’ credit scores. We
split all FHA originations into four groups by the
borrowers’ FICO score. We find that prior to the
recession in November 2007, 62.8 percent of FHA
borrowers were either deep subprime (scores less
than 600) or subprime (scores between 601 and
660). However, when FHA loans began to increase
at the end of 2007, FHA lending to deep subprime
borrowers was in decline and ended completely
by 2010. Since then, FHA loans have been going
more often to prime (with scores above 700) and
near-prime (with scores between 661 and 700) borrowers. Currently, 73.9 percent of FHA-originated
loans go to prime or near-prime borrowers.

3

Share of Loans in Default, by FICO Score
Percent
40
FHA deep
subprime loans
All subprime
loans

30
20

FHA subprime
loans
All FHA loans

10
0

2000

2005

2010

2014

Note: Shaded bars indicate recessions.
Sources: Black Knight Financial Services; CoreLogic ABS; authors’ calculations.

Stock of FHA Loans by FICO Score
at Origination
Percent
1.0
0.8

Prime loans

0.6
Near prime loans
0.4
Subprime loans

0.2
0
2000

2005

2010

2014

Deep subprime
loans

Sources: Black Knight Financial Services; authors’ calculations.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

We also compare the performance of subprime
loans made by the FHA with that of subprime
loans made by other lenders. We look at the rate
of default, which is defined as a loan in any of the
following conditions: those with more than two
missed monthly payments, those in foreclosure, or
those that are REO (“real estate owned,” meaning
the bank reposessed the home). We see that in the
2000s and prior to the recession, both the FHA’s
subprime and deep subprime loans performed
about as badly as the subprime loans of non-FHA
lenders: between 7.8 and 20.6 percent of the FHA’s
deep-subprime loans were in default, and between
3.6 and 10.5 percent of the FHA’s subprime loans
were in default, while between 7.9 to 25.2 percent
of non-FHA lenders’ total subprime loans defaulted.
Although the standards for FHA originations have
improved substantially in that originations to the
deep subprime segment stopped and originations
to near-prime and prime segments increased, the
performance of the overall FHA mortgage market
has not improved. The default rate of all FHA loans
combined is still higher than it was before the onset
of the subprime boom in 2003.
The reason for the underperformance of the overall
FHA market even with the improved standards is
seen when analyzing the stock of outstanding FHA
loans. Outstanding loans are those that were previously originated. Despite the fact that deep subprime loans ceased to be originated after 2010, they
still represent 6.2 percent of all outstanding FHA
loans. Likewise, subprime loans still constitute 30.5
percent. However, if the FHA continues to facilitate lending to more creditworthy borrowers, the
performance of the overall FHA market is poised to
improve in the future.

4

Banking and Financial Markets

Did Core Deposits Hedge Loan-Commitment Risk during the Financial
Crisis?
04.14.2015
by Mahmoud Elamin and Caitlin Treanor
A financial crisis is generally a time of great stress
for banks, firms, and individuals all at once. Firms
and banks might be cut off from funding options
that just before the crisis were considered stable.
At the same time, individuals and firms might be
forced to draw down their credit lines to deal with
unemployment, slower sales, and other expenses.
Under such conditions, banks can find it challenging to provide funding to stressed borrowers,
because they are stressed themselves.

Total Core Deposits and Unused Commitments
Trillions of US dollars
9

Core
deposits

8
Lehman collapse

7
6

Unused
loan
commitments

5
4
3
2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Note: Shaded bar indicates a recession.
Source: Call Reports data.

Besides providing liquidity through loans, banks
provide loan commitments. These represent a
promise to fund future credit demand by borrowers. A familiar example of a loan commitment is
a credit card. Your credit limit is the amount the
bank promises to fund when you make purchases.
If you have a $1,000 limit and you have spent
$250, then $250 will show up on a bank’s balance
sheet as a loan and $750 will show up off the balance sheet as an unused loan commitment.
During a crisis, banks might experience an unusually large drawdown on these unused commitments. The exposure to the demand for liquidity
can leave banks scrounging for cash to cover their
commitments. A number of research papers claim
that banks should be able to meet these demands
because funds from depositors should simultaneously be flowing in, as investors, scared by the market turmoil, seek the safe haven of deposits. If this
relationship does in fact exist, we would expect to
see core deposits and unused commitments moving
in opposite directions during a crisis. Core deposits
include total transaction accounts, savings deposits,
and time deposits of less than $100,000, and they
are generally considered a stable source of funds for
a bank’s lending base.
The relationship seems to hold in the aggregate during the most recent crisis. The aggregate amount of
unused commitments declined, while total core de-

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

5

posits increased. But that might be misleading because the increase in deposits might be happening
at banks with no decline in loan commitments. At
the outset of the crisis, the level of unused commitments was significantly higher than the deposit base
supporting these promises. As the crisis unfolded,
the gap closed, and deposits overtook the level of
unused commitments by the end of the crisis.

Percent of Total Unused Loan
Commitments, June 2007
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Number of banks included

The US banking industry is dominated by a few big
bank holding companies, which usually behave differently than the rest of the pack, and it is no different here. The top ten bank holding companies hold
the vast majority of unused loan commitments. In
June of 2007, right as the crisis hit, the top ten held
nearly 80 percent of unused loan commitments,
while the top two had 43 percent.

Source: Call Reports data.

Total Unused Loan Commitments and
Core Deposits for the Top Ten BHCs
Trillions of US dollars
6
Lehman collapse
5

Core
deposits

4

Unused
loan
commitments

3
2
1
0
2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Note: Shaded bar indicates a recession.
Source: Call Reports data.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

The decrease in unused commitments could have
occurred for two main reasons: one, individuals and
businesses made purchases and drew down their
lines of credit; two, banks withdrew or reduced
their previously extended lines of credit. Probably
both factors were at play during the crisis, but we
think the action we see is more due to drawdowns.
It is generally hard for banks to back out of their
promises, because they fear the consequences of loss
of reputation. Firms would not buy these commitments in the future, unless they think it is very
likely the bank would fulfill them in times of need.

The top ten bank holding companies’ total unused
commitments are significantly greater than their
total core deposits. At the beginning of 2007, the
top ten banks had in aggregate 2.6 times as many
dollars promised in unused commitments as they
had sitting in core deposits. By the end of 2009,
this ratio had dropped to 1.5.
Core deposits increased during the crisis period by
35 percent, or $445 billion. Unused loan commitments, on the other hand, fell by $1.29 trillion
between 2007:Q4 and 2009:Q2.This decline seems
to have significantly accelerated after the Lehman
collapse in September 2008. If the decrease in
unused commitments was due to drawdowns, then
the increase in deposits would have cushioned the
blow. On the other hand, it was not nearly enough
to cover the entire change in commitments, leaving
a whopping shortfall of $845 billion.
6

Total Unused Loan Commitments and
Core Deposits, Excluding Top Ten BHCs
Trillions of US dollars
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2006

Core
deposits

Unused
loan
commitments

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Note: Shaded bar indicates a recession.
Source: Call Reports data.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

Banks below the top ten, conversely, live in an
entirely different universe. Core deposits are much
higher than their total unused commitments
throughout. The increase in core deposits during the crisis seems to be significantly higher than
the slight decline in unused commitments. At the
beginning of 2007, banks below the top ten had in
aggregate 1.8 times as many dollars sitting in core
deposits as they had promised in unused commitments. By the end of 2009, this ratio was up to 2.5.
All in all, it seems that unused commitments experienced a significant decline in the top ten banks,
with the increase in core deposits only slightly
mitigating the demand for liquidity accompanying
this decline. Banks below the top ten seem to have
experienced little change in their unused commitments, with a significant increase in deposits. We
conclude that some evidence in the crisis trends
suggests that the increase in core deposits hedges to
some degree the decline in unused commitments.
But the aggregate picture is different from one that
considers banks of different sizes, suggesting the
actual situation is more complex.

7

Households and Consumers

Behind the Slow Pace of Wage Growth
04.09.2015
by Filippo Occhino and Timothy Stehulak

Wage Rate
Four-quarter percent change
6
5
4
Compensation
per hour
Average
hourly earnings

3
2

Despite continued progress in the labor market,
wages have been rising slowly. In 2014, total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 3.1 million and
the unemployment rate declined by 1.1 percentage points to 5.6 percent, indicating that the labor
market was improving. Meanwhile, average hourly
earnings and compensation per hour rose only
by 1.8 percent and by 2.5 percent, respectively, a
smaller increase than one might expect after 5 years
of economic recovery. In this article, we look at
some factors behind the slow pace of wage growth,
including slow productivity growth and labor’s
declining share of income.

1
0
-1
2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Notes: Shaded bar indicates recession. Average hourly earnings is for all private industries.
Compensation per hour is for the nonfarm business sector.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Real Wage Rate
Four-quarter percent change
5
4
3
Real average
hourly earnings

2

Real
compensation
per hour

1
0
-1
-2
-3
2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Notes: Shaded bar indicates recession. Real average hourly earnings is for all private
industries. Real compensation per hour is for the nonfarm business sector.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

One reason wages have been rising slowly is that
prices have been rising slowly. Low inflation,
however, does not explain the trend in wages completely. Even after subtracting the effect of inflation, wages have been rising slowly. In 2014, real
average hourly earnings and real compensation per
hour rose, respectively, by only 1.2 percent and 1.3
percent.
In fact, real wages have been rising slowly for
several years. Measuring from the end of the Great
Recession, real wages have barely risen—real compensation per hour has risen only by 0.5 percent,
much less than at this point in past recoveries. The
lack of strong wage growth has been one factor that
has held down the growth of income, consumer
spending, and the recovery.
Some temporary factors may explain, in part, weak
real wage growth during the recovery. For instance,
Daly and Hobijn (2015) suggest that many firms
were not able to reduce wages during the Great Recession, so they compensated by not raising wages
as fast during the recovery. This factor, however,
became less and less important over time as the
recovery continued to progress.
Another factor that may have held down wage
growth during the recovery is a change in the composition of jobs and hours—a relative increase in

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

8

Real Compensation per Hour
Percent change from business cycle trough
16

1991:Q12000:Q4

14
12
10

1982:Q41990:Q2
2001:Q42007:Q3

8
6
4
2

2009:Q22014:Q4

0
-2
-4

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38
Quarters from NBER trough

Note: Data are for the nonfarm business sector.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Labor Productivity and Real Wage Rate
Average growth rates for select periods
4.0
3.5

Real output per hour
Real compensation per hour

3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1948:Q1-1973:Q1 1973:Q2-1997:Q1 1997:Q2-2003:Q4 2004:Q1-2014:Q4
Note: Data are for the nonfarm business sector.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

lower-paid jobs and hours may have depressed the
average wage. Data, however, suggests that a change
in the composition of occupations did not have a
strong effect on the average wage: The employment
cost index for total compensation—an index that
tracks the cost of labor for a fixed composition of
occupations—has risen by 11.5 percent during the
recovery, which is similar to the growth in average hourly earnings and compensation per hour,
which have risen, respectively, by 11.3 percent and
by 11.5 percent. Also, Elvery and Vecchio (2015,
Table 2) find that the effect of the change in the
mix of occupations on the change in the average
wage between 2010 and 2013 was small (and actually positive). Similarly, Mancuso (2015) finds that
shifts in industry composition do not explain much
of the weakness in wage growth during the recovery.
Some longer-term changes in the economy have
likely played a larger role in depressing real wage
growth. The first is the slowdown of labor productivity in the last decade. Productivity growth in the
nonfarm business sector has averaged only 1.46
percent since 2004 and 0.85 percent since 2010.
As the growth of labor productivity is a key determinant of real wage growth in the long run, the
slowdown of productivity has probably helped to
depress wage growth.
Other long-term changes in the economy, including the evolution of the technology used to produce
goods and services, increased globalization and
trade openness, and developments in labor market
institutions and policies, have caused labor’s share
of income to decline at a faster pace since 2000
than in previous years, and in doing so they have
likely held down real wage growth. After declining at an average rate of 0.1 percent per year from
1960 to 2000, the labor share has declined more
rapidly since 2000, on average about 0.5 percent
per year (see Jacobson and Occhino, 2012). In an
accounting sense, the faster decline since 2000 has
subtracted about 0.4 percentage points per year
from average real wage growth relative to the period
before 2000.
Going forward, wage growth will likely pick up in
the short run, as inflation rises and labor market

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

9

conditions strengthen further. In the longer run,
whether average real wage growth remains lower
than in the past will depend on whether trend productivity growth continues to be low and whether
other fundamental economic forces cause further
declines in the labor share of income.

Labor Share of Output
Labor compensation as a percent of output
68
66
64
62

Reference:

60

Susan Fleck, John Glaser, and Shawn Sprague (2011). “The
Compensation-Productivity Gap: A Visual Essay.” Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Monthly Labor Review.

58
56
1947

1957

1967

1977

1987

1997

2007

Notes: Shaded bars indicate recessions. The labor share is computed by scaling the
labor share index so that the labor share is equal to 57.8 in 2010:Q3, consistent with
Fleck, Glaser, and Sprague (2011, Figure 5).
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics; authors’ calculations.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

10

Inflation and Prices

Cleveland Fed Estimates of Inflation Expectations, April 2015
News Release: April 17, 2015
The latest estimate of 10-year expected inflation
is 1.70 percent, according to the Federal Reserve
Bank of Cleveland. In other words, the public currently expects the inflation rate to be less than 2
percent on average over the next decade.

Ten-Year Expected Inflation and
Real and Nominal Risk Premia
Percent
7

The Cleveland Fed’s estimate of inflation expectations is based on a model that combines information from a number of sources to address the
shortcomings of other, commonly used measures,
such as the “break-even” rate derived from Treasury
inflation protected securities (TIPS) or surveybased estimates. The Cleveland Fed model can
produce estimates for many time horizons, and it
isolates not only inflation expectations, but several
other interesting variables, such as the real interest
rate and the inflation risk premium.

6
5
4
3
2

Expected inflation
Real risk premium
Inflation risk premium

1
0
1982

1986

1990

1994

1998

2002

2006

2010

2014

Source: Haubrich, Pennacchi, Ritchken (2012).

Ten-Year TIPS Yields versus Real Yields

Expected Inflation Yield Curve

Percent
5

Percent
2.5
April 2014
April 2015
March 2015

4

2.0

3
2

1.5

1

Ten-year model yield
Ten-year TIPS yield

0

1.0

-1

0.5
-2
1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

0.0
Source: Haubrich, Pennacchi, Ritchken (2012).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12
15
Horizon (years)

20

25

30

Source: Haubrich, Pennacchi, Ritchken (2012).

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

11

Monetary Policy

Yield Curve and Predicted GDP Growth, April 2015
Covering March 21–April 24, 2015
by Joseph G. Haubrich and Sara Millington

Overview of the Latest Yield Curve Figures

Highlights
April

March

February

Three-month Treasury bill rate (percent)

0.03

0.03

0.02

Ten-year Treasury bond rate (percent)

1.94

2.00

2.11

Yield curve slope (basis points)

191

197

209

Prediction for GDP growth (percent)

2.2

2.1

2.1

Probability of recession in one year (percent)

5.25

4.85

4.12

Sources: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; authors’ calculations.

Yield Curve-Predicted GDP Growth
Percent
Predicted
GDP growth

4
2
0
–2

Ten-year minus
three-month yield spread
GDP growth
(year-over-year change)

–4
–6
2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System; authors’ calculations.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

The yield curve moved flatter in April. As has been
typical lately, most of the action was at the long
end, while the short end inched upward with the
three-month (constant maturity) Treasury bill rate
staying constant at 0.03 percent (for the week
ending April 24), even with March’s number and
up from February’s 0.02 percent. The ten-year rate
(also constant maturity) dropped 6 basis points to
1.94 percent, down from 2.00 percent in March
and 20 basis points below February’s 2.11 percent.
These changes dropped the slope to 191 basis
points, down from 197 basis points in March and
further below February’s 209 basis points.
The flatter slope did not have a large impact on
predicted real GDP growth; expected growth stayed
constant. Using past values of the spread and GDP
growth suggests that real GDP will grow at about a
2.2 percent rate over the next year, barely up from
last month, which was unchanged from February.
The influence of the past recession continues to
push towards relatively low growth rates, but recent
year-over-year growth has been stronger (despite
the weak performance 2015:Q1) and is counteracting that push. Although the time horizons do not
match exactly, the forecast is slightly more pessimistic than some other predictions, but like them, it
does show moderate growth for the year.
The flatter slope, however, did have the usual effect
on the probability of a recession, which increased
slightly. Using the yield curve to predict whether or
not the economy will be in recession in the future,
we estimate that the expected chance of the economy being in a recession next April at 5.25 percent,
up from March’s estimate of 4.85 percent, which
was itself up a bit from the February probability of
4.12 percent. Although our approach is somewhat
pessimistic with regard to the level of growth over
the next year, it is still quite optimistic about the
recovery continuing.
12

The Yield Curve as a Predictor of Economic
Growth

Recession Probability from Yield Curve
Percent probability, as predicted by a probit model
100
90
Probability of recession

80
70
60

Forecast

50
40
30
20
10
0
1960 1966 1972 1978 1984 1990 1996 2002 2008 2014
Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; NBER; authors’
calculations.

Yield Curve Spread and Real GDP Growth

10
GDP growth
(year-over-year change)

6

Predicting GDP Growth

Predicting the Probability of Recession

4
2
0
Ten-year minus
three-month yield spread

–2
–4
–6
1953

More generally, a flat curve indicates weak growth,
and conversely, a steep curve indicates strong
growth. One measure of slope, the spread between
ten-year Treasury bonds and three-month Treasury
bills, bears out this relation, particularly when real
GDP growth is lagged a year to line up growth with
the spread that predicts it.

We use past values of the yield spread and GDP
growth to project what real GDP will be in the future. We typically calculate and post the prediction
for real GDP growth one year forward.

Percent

8

The slope of the yield curve—the difference between the yields on short- and long-term maturity
bonds—has achieved some notoriety as a simple
forecaster of economic growth. The rule of thumb
is that an inverted yield curve (short rates above
long rates) indicates a recession in about a year, and
yield curve inversions have preceded each of the last
seven recessions (as defined by the NBER). One of
the recessions predicted by the yield curve was the
most recent one. The yield curve inverted in August
2006, a bit more than a year before the current
recession started in December 2007. There have
been two notable false positives: an inversion in late
1966 and a very flat curve in late 1998.

1965

1977

1989

2001

2013

Note: Shaded bars indicate recessions.
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

While we can use the yield curve to predict whether
future GDP growth will be above or below average, it does not do so well in predicting an actual
number, especially in the case of recessions. Alternatively, we can employ features of the yield curve
to predict whether or not the economy will be in a
recession at a given point in the future. Typically,
we calculate and post the probability of recession
one year forward.
Of course, it might not be advisable to take these
numbers quite so literally, for two reasons. First,
this probability is itself subject to error, as is the
case with all statistical estimates. Second, other

13

Yield Spread and Lagged Real GDP
Growth
Percent
10
GDP growth
(year-over-year change)

8
6
4
2
0

Ten-year minus
three-month yield spread

–2
–4
–6
1953

1965

1977

1989

2001

2013

researchers have postulated that the underlying
determinants of the yield spread today are materially different from the determinants that generated
yield spreads during prior decades. Differences
could arise from changes in international capital
flows and inflation expectations, for example. The
bottom line is that yield curves contain important
information for business cycle analysis, but, like
other indicators, should be interpreted with caution. For more detail on these and other issues related to using the yield curve to predict recessions,
see the Commentary “Does the Yield Curve Signal
Recession?” Our friends at the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York also maintain a website with
much useful information on the topic, including
their own estimate of recession probabilities.

Note: Shaded bars indicate recessions.
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

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Economic Trends is published by the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
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ISSN 0748-2922

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | April 2015

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