Conditional yield skewness is an important summary statistic of the state of the economy. It exhibits pronounced variation over the business cycle and with the stance of monetary policy, and a tight relationship with the slope of the yield curve. Most importantly, variation in yield skewness has...

Increases in the federal funds rate aimed at stabilizing the economy have inevitably been followed by recessions. Recently, peaks in the federal funds rate have occurred 6-16 months before the start of recessions; reductions in interest rates apparently occurred too late to prevent those...