Category Archives: financial markets

Interpreting Spreads

Here is a graph of two spreads oft-cited: (1) a term spread, the 10 year-3 month spread, and (2) a spread between a nominal rate and a real rate, the 10 year Treasury yield and 10 year TIPS yield, commonly interpreted as the inflation breakeven. (I leave the credit spread for another post.)

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Guest Contribution: “The effectiveness of macroprudential policies and capital controls against volatile capital inflows”

Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Jon Frost (Bank for International Settlements), Hiro Ito (Portland State) and René van Stralen (De Nederlandsche Bank). The views expressed represent those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of De Nederlandsche Bank, or any other institutions the authors are affiliated with.


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Guest Contribution: “How the Coronavirus Crisis is Affecting Japanese and American Businesses: Evidence from the Stock Market”

Today, we’re fortunate to have Willem Thorbecke, Senior Fellow at Japan’s Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) as a guest contributor. The views expressed represent those of the author himself, and do not necessarily represent those of RIETI, or any other institutions the author is affiliated with.

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Guest Contribution: “Market volatility and the length of the Covid-19 recession”

Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Valerio Ercolani and Filippo Natoli, both of the Directorate General for Economics, Statistics and Research of the Bank of Italy. The views presented in this note represent those of the authors and not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Italy.

 


After the economic downturn that followed the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis, private forecasters see a rebound in the third quarter of 2020 both in the US and worldwide. While this appears as the most plausible scenario assuming lockdown and social distancing measures are soon relaxed, a recessive dynamics through the end of the year cannot be ruled out. A simple probit model augmented with market volatility, which reached its maximum last March, forecasts a more prolonged recession in the United States. Historically, turmoil in financial markets informed us that the associated recessions were not close to the end. 

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