IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gwc/wpaper/2016-004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating a Leading Indicator: An Application: the Term Spread

Author

Listed:
  • Herman O. Stekler

    (The George Washington University)

  • Tianyu Ye

    (The George Washington University)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the procedures that have previously been used to evaluate indicators. These methods determine whether the indicator correctly classifies periods when there was (not) a recession. These approaches do not show whether or not an indicator signaled a turn or failed to predict it. This paper then presents a new approach and applies it to the term spread series. The results are mixed because the indicator predicts every recession but also generates a large number of false signals. This result may explain why economists do not always place great weight on this series.

Suggested Citation

  • Herman O. Stekler & Tianyu Ye, 2016. "Evaluating a Leading Indicator: An Application: the Term Spread," Working Papers 2016-004, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    • Handle: RePEc:gwc:wpaper:2016-004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.gwu.edu/~forcpgm/2016-004.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2016
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2006. "How Stable is the Forecasting Performance of the Yield Curve for Output Growth?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 68(s1), pages 783-795, December.
    2. Lahiri, Kajal & Monokroussos, George & Zhao, Yongchen, 2013. "The yield spread puzzle and the information content of SPF forecasts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 219-221.
    3. Marcelle Chauvet & Simon Potter, 2005. "Forecasting recessions using the yield curve," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 77-103.
    4. Benjamin M. Friedman & Kenneth N. Kuttner, 1998. "Indicator Properties Of The Paper-Bill Spread: Lessons From Recent Experience," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 34-44, February.
    5. Michael Dueker, 2005. "Dynamic Forecasts of Qualitative Variables: A Qual VAR Model of U.S. Recessions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 96-104, January.
    6. 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.
    7. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    8. Lahiri, Kajal & Wang, J. George, 2013. "Evaluating probability forecasts for GDP declines using alternative methodologies," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 175-190.
    9. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Williams, John C., 2009. "Forecasting Recessions: The Puzzle of the Enduring Power of the Yield Curve," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 492-503.
    10. S. S. Alexander & H. O. Stekler, 1959. "Forecasting Industrial Production--Leading Series versus Autoregression," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(4), pages 402-402.
    11. Lahiri, Kajal & Yang, Liu, 2015. "A further analysis of the conference board’s new Leading Economic Index," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 446-453.
    12. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues & Sebastian Schich, 2003. "How Stable is the Predictive Power of the Yield Curve? Evidence from Germany and the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 629-644, August.
    13. Bryan Boulier & H. O. Stekler, 2001. "The term spread as a cyclical indicator: a forecasting evaluation," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(4), pages 403-409.
    14. Kajal Lahiri & J George Wang, 2006. "Subjective Probability Forecasts for Recessions," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 26-37, April.
    15. Travis J. Berge, 2015. "Predicting Recessions with Leading Indicators: Model Averaging and Selection over the Business Cycle," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), pages 455-471, September.
    16. Kuttner, Kenneth N. & Friedman, Benjamin Morton, 1998. "Indicator Properties of the Paper—Bill Spread: Lessons from Recent Experience," Scholarly Articles 4554251, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    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. Vasilios Plakandaras & Juncal Cunado & Rangan Gupta & Mark E. Wohar, 2016. "Do Leading Indicators Forecast U.S. Recessions? A Nonlinear Re-Evaluation Using Historical Data," Working Papers 201685, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    2. Knut Lehre Seip & Dan Zhang, 2021. "The Yield Curve as a Leading Indicator: Accuracy and Timing of a Parsimonious Forecasting Model," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-16, May.
    3. Chauvet, Marcelle & Senyuz, Zeynep, 2008. "A Joint Dynamic Bi-Factor Model of the Yield Curve and the Economy as a Predictor of Business Cycles," MPRA Paper 15076, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Apr 2009.
    4. Sun, Jiandong & Feng, Shuaizhang & Hu, Yingyao, 2021. "Misclassification errors in labor force statuses and the early identification of economic recessions," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. David C. Wheelock & Mark E. Wohar, 2009. "Can the term spread predict output growth and recessions? a survey of the literature," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 91(Sep), pages 419-440.
    6. Liu, Weiling & Moench, Emanuel, 2016. "What predicts US recessions?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1138-1150.
    7. Shuping Shi & Peter C. B. Phillips & Stan Hurn, 2018. "Change Detection and the Causal Impact of the Yield Curve," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 966-987, November.
    8. Aguiar-Conraria, Luís & Martins, Manuel M.F. & Soares, Maria Joana, 2012. "The yield curve and the macro-economy across time and frequencies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 1950-1970.
    9. Chauvet, Marcelle & Senyuz, Zeynep, 2016. "A dynamic factor model of the yield curve components as a predictor of the economy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 324-343.
    10. Marcelle Chauvet & Zeynep Senyuz, 2012. "A Dynamic Factor Model of the Yield Curve as a Predictor of the Economy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-32, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Galvão, Ana Beatriz, 2013. "Changes in predictive ability with mixed frequency data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 395-410.
    12. Lahiri, Kajal & Yang, Liu, 2013. "Forecasting Binary Outcomes," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1025-1106, Elsevier.
    13. Leo Krippner & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2009. "Forecasting New Zealand's economic growth using yield curve information," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2009/18, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    14. Döpke, Jörg & Fritsche, Ulrich & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2017. "Predicting recessions with boosted regression trees," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 745-759.
    15. Kajal Lahiri & Cheng Yang, 2023. "ROC and PRC Approaches to Evaluate Recession Forecasts," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 19(2), pages 119-148, September.
    16. B. De Backer & M. Deroose & Ch. Van Nieuwenhuyze, 2019. "Is a recession imminent? The signal of the yield curve," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue i, pages 69-93, June.
    17. Davig, Troy & Hall, Aaron Smalter, 2019. "Recession forecasting using Bayesian classification," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 848-867.
    18. Feng, Shuaizhang & Sun, Jiandong, 2020. "Misclassification-errors-adjusted Sahm Rule for Early Identification of Economic Recession," GLO Discussion Paper Series 523, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Hwang, Youngjin, 2019. "Forecasting recessions with time-varying models," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    20. Joseph G. Haubrich, 2021. "Does the Yield Curve Predict Output?," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 341-362, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    leading series; ROC curve; yield spread puzzle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:gwc:wpaper:2016-004. 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: GW Economics Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/pfgwuus.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.