Category Archives: financial markets

The Real Term Spread and Recessions

There’s an argument being made that because of the zero lower bound, the standard nominal term spread is unlikely to be as accurate a predictor of recessions as it has in the past. A prominent example of this view circulating now is that forwarded by Deutsche Bank’s Dominic Konstam; his analysis indicates a 60% likelihood of recession (WSJ RTE), in contrast to the estimates obtained from the standard model, ranging in the low teens (see for example this post).

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