IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bis/biswps/37.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the term structure predict recessions? The international evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Henri Bernard
  • Stefan Gerlach

Abstract

Following Estrella and Hardouvelis (1991) and Estrella and Mishkin (1995a, b), we study the ability of the term structure to predict recessions in eight countries. The results are fourfold. First, the yield curve provides information about the likelihood of future recessions in all countries. Second, term spreads are useful for predicting recessions as much as two years ahead. Third, while German and US spreads are frequently significant in the regressions for the other countries, the added information is limited except in Japan and the United Kingdom. Fourth, while leading indicators contain information beyond that in term spreads, this information is only useful for forecasting recessions in the immediate future. These findings provide further evidence of the potential usefulness of term spreads as indicators for monetary policy purposes.

Suggested Citation

  • Henri Bernard & Stefan Gerlach, 1996. "Does the term structure predict recessions? The international evidence," BIS Working Papers 37, Bank for International Settlements.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:37
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/work37.pdf
    File Function: Full PDF document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.bis.org/publ/work37.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben S. Bernanke, 1990. "On the predictive power of interest rates and interest rate spreads," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 51-68.
    2. Fama, Eugene F., 1990. "Term-structure forecasts of interest rates, inflation and real returns," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 59-76, January.
    3. Artis, Michael J & Kontolemis, Zenon G & Osborn, Denise R, 1997. "Business Cycles for G7 and European Countries," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(2), pages 249-279, April.
    4. Plosser, Charles I. & Geert Rouwenhorst, K., 1994. "International term structures and real economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 133-155, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ivanova, Detelina & Lahiri, Kajal & Seitz, Franz, 2000. "Interest rate spreads as predictors of German inflation and business cycles," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 39-58.
    2. Edward N. Gamber, 1996. "The policy content of the yield curve slope," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(2), pages 163-179.
    3. Hamilton, James D & Kim, Dong Heon, 2002. "A Reexamination of the Predictability of Economic Activity Using the Yield Spread," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 340-360, May.
    4. Rebecca Stuart, 2020. "Monetary regimes, the term structure and business cycles in Ireland, 1972–2018," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(5), pages 731-748, September.
    5. repec:cdl:ucsdec:qt69v8p1m9 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. James H. Stock & Mark W.Watson, 2003. "Forecasting Output and Inflation: The Role of Asset Prices," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 788-829, September.
    7. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2001. "Forecasting output and inflation: the role of asset prices," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue mar.
    8. Khurshid Kiani, 2011. "Fluctuations in Economic and Activity and Stabilization Policies in the CIS," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 193-220, February.
    9. Franck Sédillot, 2001. "La pente des taux contient-elle de l'information sur l'activité économique future ?," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 147(1), pages 141-157.
    10. Chris Birchenhall & Denise Osborn & Marianne Sensier, 2001. "Predicting UK Business Cycle Regimes," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 48(2), pages 179-195, May.
    11. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika & Wei, Min, 2006. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 359-403.
    12. Fernando Barran & Virginie Coudert & Benoît Mojon, 1995. "Taux d'intérêt, spreads, comportement bancaire : les effets sur l'activité réelle," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 46(3), pages 625-634.
    13. Christiansen, Charlotte, 2013. "Predicting severe simultaneous recessions using yield spreads as leading indicators," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1032-1043.
    14. Kim, Kenneth A. & Limpaphayom, Piman, 1997. "The effect of economic regimes on the relation between term structure and real activity in Japan," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 379-392.
    15. Morell, Joseph, 2018. "The decline in the predictive power of the US term spread: A structural interpretation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 314-331.
    16. Andrea Nobili, 2005. "Forecasting Output Growth And Inflation In The Euro Area: Are Financial Spreads Useful?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 544, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Leo Krippner, 2005. "Investigating the Relationships between the Yield Curve, Output and Inflation using an Arbitrage-Free Version of the Nelson and Siegel Class of Yield Curve Models," Working Papers in Economics 05/02, University of Waikato.
    18. Owen Lamont, 1997. "Do "Shortages" Cause Inflation?," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 281-306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Kuang-Liang Chang & Nan-Kuang Chen & Charles Leung, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Term Structure and Asset Return: Comparing REIT, Housing and Stock," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 221-257, July.
    20. Willi Semmler, 2011. "Asset Prices, Booms and Recessions," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-642-20680-1, January.
    21. Andrew Ang & Monika Piazzesi & Min Wei, 2003. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue mar.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:37. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martin Fessler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bisssch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.