摘要：Since December 2016 the Federal Reserve has raised its policy interest rate by 100 bp and since October 2017 it has been gradually reducing the size of its balance sheet, ceasing to reinvest a portion of the maturing financial assets in its portfolio which were acquired during the quantitative easing programmes. This process of monetary normalisation and a communication policy geared to signalling further future rises in policy rates have led to increases in the shortest-dated market interest rates. However, the longest-dated interest rates have not increased by the same amount. Accordingly, the yield curve slope for US government securities has diminished, standing at levels not recorded since the months prior to the onset of the financial crisis. Given that, in recent decades, the episodes in which the slope of this curve turned negative – i.e. the longest-dated interest rates stood below their shorter-dated counterparts – were followed in most cases by a recession in the United States, the current reduction in the slope is prompting debate on its implications.
