Considerable attention has been given to examining the information content of the paper-bill spread in terms of predicting U.S. real economic activity. However, the results have been mixed. This paper examines the robustness of the paper-bill spread as an indicator variable of real output growth...

The spread between the rates on commercial paper and Treasury bills has received considerable attention in the literature for its role as an indicator of real economic activity. In this paper we empirically examine what happens when the volatility of the spread changes over time. We estimate a...