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September 2014 (August 15, 2014-September 25, 2014)

In This Issue:
Growth and Production
 Growth Expected to Pick Up

Inflation and Prices
 Cleveland Fed Estimates of Inflation
Expectations, August 2014
 Evaluating Progress Toward the Fed’s
Inflation Target

Labor Markets, Unemployment, and Wages
 Industries, Job Growth, and Poverty Trends

Monetary Policy
 The Yield Curve and Predicted GDP Growth,
August 2014

Growth and Production

Growth Expected to Pick Up
09.25.14
by Filippo Occhino

Real GDP
Trillions of chained 2009 dollars

Congressional
Budget Office
potential

17

16

Actual

15

14

13
2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

Note: Shaded bar indicates recession.
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Congressional Budget Office, Haver
Analytics.

Output Gap
Percent
6
4
2

1981:Q31982:Q4
1973:Q41975:Q1
2007:Q42009:Q2

0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
-12

-8

-4
0
4
8
12
Quarters from end of recession

16

20

Notes: The output gap is the percent difference between actual and potential
output. A negative number indicates that actual output is below potential.
Sources: Congressional Budget Office, Haver Analytics, author’s calculations.

The effects of the Great Recession have lasted for
an exceptionally long period of time. For the past
several years the level of output has remained below
its potential level (the level that could be reached
if all available capital and labor were being used at
their full rate). Equivalently, the output gap (the
gap between actual output and potential output)
has remained wide open. The output gap is still
4 percent five years after the end of the recession.
This is much longer than is typical—for instance,
it was already less than 1 percent within three
years after the end of the last two severe recessions
(1973–1975 and 1981–1982).
In turn, the prolonged economic weakness has
lowered the level of potential output by discouraging labor force participation and the number of
potential hours that could be worked, by slowing
the growth of labor skills and of human capital,
by restraining the growth of investment and of
physical capital, and by reducing R&D spending
and total factor productivity growth. According
to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates,
the Great Recession and the sluggish recovery will
reduce the level of potential output in 2017 by 1.8
percentage points—0.7 percentage points from
fewer potential labor hours, 0.6 percentage points
from reduced capital services, and 0.5 percentage
points from lower total factor productivity. Other
studies estimate even larger effects. For instance,
Ball forecasts that the Great Recession will reduce
potential output in 2015 by 5.33 percentage points
in the United States and by an average of 8.4
percentage points in 23 OECD countries; in some
of these countries, the Great Recession depressed
not only the level of potential output but also its
growth rate.
The combination of prolonged economic weakness
and slow potential growth has led to a debate on
the risk that the economy may have entered or may
soon enter a period of stagnation—a prolonged
period characterized by low interest rates, low

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

2

inflation rates, slow potential growth, and a level of
output below potential. (Read a review of different
views on the risk of secular stagnation.)

Real GDP
Year-over-year percent change
4
Actual
3

Congressional
Budget Office
Potential
Congressional
Budget Office
forecast

2

1
2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020

Note: Congressional Budget Office forecast is calculated from the quarterly
growth rates implied by the Congressional Budget Office forecast of the
yearly growth rates.
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Congressional Budget Office, Haver
Analytics, author’s calculations.

Real GDP
Trillions of chained 2009 dollars

Congressional
Budget Office
Potential
Congressional
Budget Office
forecast

19

17

15

Current economic conditions, however, suggest
that the economy continues to recover. In the five
years following the end of the Great Recession, the
economy grew at a steady, albeit modest, rate—real
GDP grew at an average 2.2 percent annual rate.
After declining at a 2.1 percent annual rate in
the first quarter of 2014 due to temporary factors
like bad weather, real GDP rebounded to a 4.2
percent annual growth rate in the second quarter
[now revised to 4.6 percent as of 9/26/14], driven
by household consumption and business investment. Reports on business conditions indicate that
economic activity continues to expand. Growth is
expected to pick up in the next few years and then
to converge to a moderate rate in the longer run.
According to the latest CBO forecast, real GDP
will grow 1.5 percent this year, 3.4 percent both in
2015 and in 2016, 2.7 percent in 2017, and 2.2
percent on average between 2018 and 2022. Real
GDP will grow faster than potential in the years
2015 through 2017, which will almost completely
close the output gap by the beginning of 2018.

Actual

13
2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Congressional Budget Office, Haver
Analytics, author’s calculations.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

3

Inflation and Prices

Cleveland Fed Estimates of Inflation Expectations, August 2014
News Release: August 19, 2014
The latest estimate of 10-year expected inflation
is 1.89 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
6
5
4
Expected inflation
3
2
Inflation risk premium

1
0
1982

1986

1990

1994

1998

2002

2006

2010

2014

Source: Haubrich, Pennacchi, Ritchken (2012).

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.

Expected Inflation Yield Curve

Real Interest Rate

Percent

Percent

2.5

12
10

August 2014
July 2014
August 2013

2.0

8
1.5

6
4

1.0

2
0.5

0
-2

0.0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12

-4

15

20

25

30

Horizon (years)

-6
1982

1986

1990

1994

1998

2002

2006

2010

2014

Source: Haubrich, Pennacchi, Ritchken (2012).

Source: Haubrich, Pennacchi, Ritchken (2012).

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

4

Inflation and Prices

Evaluating Progress Toward the Fed’s Inflation Target
08.26.14
by William Bednar and Todd Clark
Since January 2012, the Federal Open Market
Committee (FOMC) has explicitly stated an inflation target of 2 percent. Since that time, most measures of inflation have been running persistently
below that target. While in recent months some
inflation indicators have made progress in moving
back toward 2 percent, determining just how close
we are to the FOMC’s target depends on which
inflation measure we look at.

PCE Inflation Measures
Year-over-year percent change
3.0

2.5

2.0
PCE price
index
Core PCE
price index

1.5

1.0

0.5
1/2012

7/2012

1/2013

7/2013

1/2014

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.

CPI Inflation Measures
Year-over-year percent change
3.0

2.5
CPI
Core CPI

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5
1/2012

7/2012

1/2013

7/2013

1/2014

7/2014

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

For example, measures based on the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index indicate
that progress has been made toward the 2 percent
inflation target but that inflation still remains
somewhat below the desired level. The year-overyear percent change in the PCE price index, which
remained below 1.5 percent since early 2013,
ticked up to near 1.7 percent in May and was at 1.6
percent in June. Additionally, inflation as measured
by the core PCE price index, which excludes food
and energy costs and is therefore a less volatile
measure of underlying inflation, increased to 1.5
percent by June after staying in a narrow range
around 1.3 percent over most of the past year.
In contrast, measures based on the Consumer Price
Index (CPI) give a different impression of where
we are in relation to a 2 percent target. The yearover-year percent change in the CPI increased to
2.0 percent in April of this year and has remained
near that level through July. Core CPI inflation increased to 2.0 percent in May, and as of July, was at
1.9 percent. Evaluating current inflation levels with
the CPI could lead us to think that we have been
right on target over the past few months.
But it isn’t quite right to use common CPI
measures of inflation to assess proximity to the
FOMC’s longer-run inflation goal. The FOMC’s
target is based on the Committee’s preferred measure of inflation —the PCE price index. Normally,
CPI inflation runs higher than PCE inflation; since
2001, the difference has been about 0.4 percentage
5

points. There are a number of reasons that CPI inflation commonly exceeds PCE inflation, having to
do with the different purposes of the price measures
and their construction.

Gap Between CPI and PCE Inflation
Percentage points
1.5
Average since 2001
1.0

0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0
2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

Note: Difference between year-over-year percent change in CPI and PCE price index.
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gap Between Chained CPI
and PCE Inflation
Percentage points
1.5

1.0

Average since 2001

0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0
2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

Note: Difference between year-over-year percent change in chained CPI and PCE
price index.
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

One of the primary drivers of the difference in PCE
and CPI inflation rates is known as substitution
bias. As the price of one good goes up relative to
another, consumers will make substitutions in their
purchases, to spend less on the now more expensive
good and more on the newly cheaper item. The
PCE measure of inflation does a better job of capturing this kind of substitution than does the CPI.
Both the CPI and the PCE price index are weighted averages of price indexes for individual categories of goods and services, where the weights are
determined based on the composition of consumption. The weights used in the construction of the
PCE index are updated each month based on the
composition of consumption in that month, while
the weights used in the CPI are not. The weights in
the CPI are adjusted, but at a lower frequency. As a
result, the CPI does not do as good of a job as the
PCE price index at capturing substitution, which
causes CPI inflation to (on average) exceed PCE
inflation.
However, there is a version of the CPI that attempts
to account for substitution in a manner similar
to the PCE price index: the chain-weighted (or
chained) CPI. For the chained CPI, the weights
for each individual category are adjusted monthly
in order to keep up with changes in consumption. This eliminates the substitution bias in the
CPI. Over time, the average rate of inflation in
the chained CPI is similar to the average rate of
inflation in PCE prices (both overall and the PCE
excluding food and energy). As a result, for comparing CPI inflation to the FOMC’s 2 percent
inflation goal, the chained CPI is more appropriate
than the more widely publicized, simple CPI.
Over the past couple of years, it turns out that
chained CPI measures paint a picture pretty similar
(although not exactly the same) to the one painted
by PCE measures. Inflation in the chained CPI
has been very similar to PCE inflation, until very
recently, when the chained CPI moved somewhat
above PCE inflation. In fact, as of June, inflation in
6

Chained CPI and PCE Inflation
Year-over-year percent change
3.0

2.5

2.0

Chained CPI
PCE price index

1.5

1.0

0.5
1/2012

7/2012

1/2013

7/2013

1/2014

7/2014

the chained CPI was 2.0 percent, while PCE inflation was 1.6 percent. For core inflation, the chained
CPI excluding food and energy has been running
consistently a little higher than core PCE inflation,
but following a very similar pattern from month
to month. At present, core chain CPI inflation is a
little below 1.8 percent, while core PCE inflation is
1.6 percent.
Putting all of this together, the chain CPI, like
the PCE, shows some recent progress toward the
FOMC’s longer-run inflation goal of 2 percent,
with chain CPI inflation a little closer to 2 percent
than PCE inflation has been.

Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Core Chained CPI and PCE Inflation
Year-over-year percent change
3.0

2.5

2.0
Core
chained CPI
Core PCE
price index

1.5

1.0

0.5
1/2012

7/2012

1/2013

7/2013

1/2014

7/2014

Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

7

Labor Markets, Unemployment, and Wages

Industries, Job Growth and Poverty Trends
09.02.14
by Stephan Whitaker, Christopher Vecchio, and
Anne Chen

Estimated County Poverty Rate: 2012
Population (millions)
30

20

10

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Poverty rate
Source: American Community Survey.

Change in County Poverty Rate:
2007−2012
Population (millions)
40

Between 2007 and 2012, the percentage of Americans living in poverty increased from 12.5 percent
to 15 percent. Both poverty rates and poverty
growth rates vary a lot across counties. One-quarter
of the US population lives in counties in which
poverty rates increased 4.3 percentage points or
more between 2007 and 2012. Another quarter of
the population lives in counties where poverty rates
increased by 1.8 percentage points or less. Only
4.75 percent of Americans live in counties that
experienced unchanged or declining poverty rates.
Employment in certain industries could be correlated with poverty for many reasons. One possibility is
that the industry serves a clientele that is disproportionately poor. The share of employment related to
social assistance and welfare administration could
be higher in high-poverty counties because workers
in this industry manage the public programs designed to assist families in poverty. In the data, this
correlation is indeed positive and significant.

30

20

10

0

The shares of a county’s employment that are in
each major industry classification are correlated
with the county’s poverty rate. Employment shares
in healthcare and public administration, for example, are positively correlated with poverty rates,
while employment shares in professional services
and construction are negatively correlated with
poverty rates. In this analysis, we examine some of
the changes in these correlations in recent years. We
will also look at the changes in industry employment that have accompanied changes in county
poverty rates.

−10

0
10
Percentage points

20

Source: American Community Survey.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

Another possibility is that industries that employ
low-skilled, low-wage workers might have permanent employees whose household income remains
below the poverty thresholds. A higher share of
employment in these industries would therefore be
associated with higher rates of poverty. Two lowpaying industries, agriculture and accommodation
8

and food service, display significant positive correlations between their shares of employment and
the poverty rate. Accommodation and food service’s
correlation has risen from a value close to zero in
2007. (For median pay by industry, see this BLS
news release.)
Following similar reasoning in the opposite direction, counties with higher shares of employment in
high-wage industries should have a smaller portion
of their residents in poverty. Several high-wage
industries do display negative correlations with
poverty, including finance, information, management, and professional services.

Correlation between Industry Share
of Employment and Poverty Rate
Healthcare
Public administration
Social assistance and welfare
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting
Utilities
Education
Transportation and warehousing
Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction
Accommodations and food services
Manufacturing
Real estate and rental and leasing
Retail trade
Finance and insurance
Arts, entertainment, and recreation
Other services
Information
Management of companies and enterprises

Correlation 2012
Correlation 2007

Wholesale trade
Construction
Professional, scientific, and technical services

-0.3 -0.2 -0.1

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Notes: Observations are 3,132 counties. Calculations are weight by population. Only three correlations are not
significant at the 1 percent level: accommodations and food services (2007); manufacturing (2012); and real
estate (2012).
Sources: County Business Patterns; Census of Governments; American Community Survey; and authors’
calculations.

Correlation between Mining
Subcategory’s Share
of Employment and Poverty Rate
Correlation
Mining subcategory

2007

2012

Mining (excluding oil and gas)

0.095*

0.053*

Oil and gas extraction

0.116*

0.048*

Mining support activities

0.129*

0.034

Notes: An asterisk indicates significance at the .05 level. Observations are
3,132 counties. Calculations are weighted by population.
Sources: County Business Patterns; Census of Governments; American Community Survey; and authors’ calculations.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

Still, a number of the correlations between employment share and the poverty rate await an alternate
explanation. Among the industries with the highest
positive correlations are healthcare, public administration, utilities, and education. These industries’
median wages rank mid to high among all industries. Shares in the low-wage retail and arts industries display negative correlations with the county’s
poverty rate.
The broad categories of mining and manufacturing display some of the smallest overall correlations
with poverty in 2012. However, disaggregating
these categories reveals interesting trends and variation.
As we have seen in the Fourth District, the expanding oil and gas extraction industry has been a
source of relatively strong employment growth in
an otherwise slow recovery. In 2007, all three subcategories of mining were positively associated with
poverty. However, by 2012 all three subcategories
of mining employment had dramatically decreased
their correlation with poverty. The decline in the
correlation for oil and gas was larger than that for
the mining subcategory that includes coal.
There are pronounced differences among the 21
subcategories of manufacturing as well. Employment shares related to wood and textiles are positively correlated with poverty at the county level.
In contrast, fabricated metals and machinery are
negatively correlated with poverty. Computer makers are categorized in manufacturing even if much
of their production is offshore. These firms, too,
9

are generally located in lower-poverty areas. One of
the notable changes in manufacturing since 2007
is that the positive correlation between poverty and
petroleum and coal products manufacturing has
declined. The shift in this mining-related manufacturing is similar to the poverty-correlation declines
discussed above in the mining industry.

Average Change in Industry Employment
for Counties with Largest and Smallest
Increases in Poverty: 2007−2012
Healthcare
Accommodation and food service
Social Assistance and welfare
Education
Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction
Public administration
Professional, scientific, and technical
Transportation and warehousing
Arts, entertainment, and recreation
Utilities
Unclassified
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting
Management of companies and enterprises
Other services
Wholesale trade
Real estate and rental and leasing
Information
Finance and insurance
Retail trade
Construction
Manufacturing

-2.5

Top quartile:
poverty increase <1.8
Bottom quartile:
poverty increase >4.3

-2.0

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

Change in employment as a percent of 2007 labor force

Note: Calculation of average is weighted by population.
Sources: County Business Patterns; Census of Governments; American Community Survey;
and authors’ calculations.

Correlation between Manufacturing
Subcategory’s Share of Employment
and Poverty Rate
Correlation
Manufacturing subcategory

2007

2012

Wood products

0.152*

0.129*

Apparel

0.129*

0.129*

Food

0.126*

0.105*

Textile mills

0.086*

0.077*

Paper

0.064*
0.046*

0.055*

Beverage and tobacco products

0.021

0.036*

Leather and allied products

0.019

0.028

Petroleum and coal products

0.036*

0.018

Furniture and related products

0.019

The counties that kept their poverty rates down
are distinguished by smaller job losses or larger job
gains in every category. The top-performing counties had notably higher job growth in accommodation and food service and mining. The counties
that experienced small increases or declines in their
poverty rate added more than twice as many workers in social assistance and welfare compared to the
counties that had the greatest increases in poverty
rates.

0.056*

Textile product mills

If we focus in on the counties that had the largest and smallest increases in poverty, we can see
interesting differences in their job growth. Counties with the greatest increases in poverty experienced job losses in construction that average over 2
percent of their 2007 labor force. Their equivalent
losses in manufacturing were over 1.5 percent. Two
industries in which job gains were similar in the
worst- and best-performing counties were education and healthcare.

0.016

Transportation equipment

0.022

0.015

Nonmetallic mineral products

0.033

0.015

Primary metals

0.025

0.009

Plastics and rubber products

0.017

0.002

Electrical equipment, appliances, and components

0.008

—0.015

Chemical

—0.008

—0.018

Machinery

—0.009

—0.048*

Fabricated metal products

—0.021

—0.050*

Miscellaneous

—0.075*

—0.056*

Printing and related support activities

—0.124*

—0.111*

Computer and electronic products

—0.227*

—0.213*

Notes: An asterisk indicates significance at the .05 level. Observations are 3,132
counties. Calculations are weighted by population.
Sources: County Business Patterns; Census of Governments; American Community
Survey; and authors’ calculations.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

10

Monetary Policy

Yield Curve and Predicted GDP Growth, August 2014
Covering July 26, 2014–August 22, 2014
by Joseph G. Haubrich and Sara Millington
Overview of the Latest Yield Curve Figures

Highlights
August

July

June

Three-month Treasury bill rate (percent)

0.03

0.03

0.03

Ten-year Treasury bond rate (percent)

2.41

2.49

2.63

Yield curve slope (basis points)

238

246

260

Prediction for GDP growth (percent)

1.5

1.5

1.4

2.46

Probability of recession in one year (percent)

1.99

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

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

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

Since last month, the yield curve continued to get
flatter, pivoting downward around the short end.
The three-month (constant maturity) Treasury
bill rate stayed fixed at 0.03 percent (for the week
ending August 22), even with July and June’s levels.
The ten-year rate (also constant maturity) decreased
to 2.41 percent, down from July’s 2.49 percent and
June’s 2.63 percent. The pivot dropped the slope
to 241 basis points, 5 basis points below July’s 246
and 19 basis points below June’s 260. By recent
standards, the yield curve remains steep.
Despite the flatter slope, predicted future growth
showed no appreciable change. Projecting forward
using past values of the spread and GDP growth
suggests that real GDP will grow at about a 1.5
percentage rate over the next year, even with July’s
forecast and just up from the 1.4 percent forecast in
June. The influence of the past recession continues
to push towards relatively low growth rates. 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 did increase the probability of
a recession, though only slightly. Using the yield
curve to predict whether or not the economy will
be in a recession in the future, we estimate that the
expected chance of the economy being in a recession next August at 2.76 percent, up a bit from
July’s reading of 2.46 percent and June’s probability
of 1.99 percent. So although our approach is somewhat pessimistic with regard to the level of growth
over the next year, it is quite optimistic about the
recovery continuing.

11

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

Note: Shaded bars indicate recessions.
Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, 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
-2

10-year minus
three-month yield spread

-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.
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.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Trends | September 2014

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 researchers have postulated that the underlying determinants of the yield spread today are materially dif12

Yield Spread and Lagged Real GDP
Growth
Percent
10
8

One-year lag of GDP growth
(year-over-year change)

6
4
2
0
-2

Ten-year minus
three-month yield spread

-4
-6
1953

1965

1977

1989

2001

ferent 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.

2013

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