Author Archives: Menzie Chinn

Guest Contribution: “Gauging Recessions with the Jobs-Workers Gap – January 2023”

Today, we are fortunate to present a guest contribution written by Paweł Skrzypczyński, economist at the National Bank of Poland. The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the National Bank of Poland.


We present an update of the jobs-workers gap discussed in previous posts: [1], [2], [3].

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Recession Probabilities Incorporating Foreign Term Spreads

Foreign term spreads in several major financial centers have inverted (you can see the yield curves here). What is the probability of a recession 12 months ahead, using the 10yr-3mo term spread, the foreign (Germany, UK, Japan, Canada) 10yr-3mo term spread, and the national Financial Conditions Index (FCI), as suggested by Ahmed and Chinn (2022)? Answer: High

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China GDP and Forecasts

Chinese GDP for q4 was released a couple weeks ago, show a resumption of growth. The IMF has upped its growth forecast (WEO), relative to October’s, by nearly a percentage point (y/y). Nonetheless, the level of GDP will match roughly what was expected back in April’s report.

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