I am more than a week behind on this, but in case you missed it, Merle Hazard has a new ditty out called “Double Dippin’.” This comes with a warning: the opening scene may make you crave ice cream:
Rising concern about a double dip makes sense given the weakness of recent macroeconomic data. On the other hand, it would be highly unusual for the United States to fall into recession with such a steep yield curve.
The concept of a “double dip” implies that there has been a recovery. At this point the recovery seems more statistical than real, as it has hardly budged the labor market. Note the thundering silence of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee [I always wonder if they are in competition with eHarmony], which in April of this year declined to identify a cycle trough and hasn’t issued any statements since.
Wouldn’t the fed preferentially buying up short term government assets also steepen the yield curve.
I am not convinced of yield curve arguments as they are arguments from price, not from both price as quantity.
Hi Doc — Yes indeed. In a new post, I look at some recent research that tries to forecast recession probabilities without the yield spread for that reason. The results are not encouraging: http://dmarron.com/2010/08/26/the-yield-spread-and-the-odds-of-recession/
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