The slope of the Treasury yield curve has often been cited as a leading economic indicator, with inversion of the curve being thought of as a harbinger of a recession. In this paper, I consider a number of probit models using the yield curve to forecast recessions. Models that use both the level...

Building on the recent macro finance literature, this paper develops an empirical term structure model in which investors' judgmental forecasts of macro variables play an important role. The model allows for a limited form of time-variation in the dynamics describing the behavior of short-term...

I analyze the business cycle implications of noisy economic indicators in the context of a dynamic general equilibrium model. Two main results emerge. First, measurement error in preliminary data releases can have a quantitatively important effect on economic fluctuations. For instance, under...

How does the additional uncertainty associated with noisy economic data affect business cycle fluctuations? I use a simple variant of the neoclassical growth model to show that the answer depends crucially on the assumed expectation-formation capabilities of agents. Under efficient signal...