Behind The Curve

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Cardiff Garcia

Published December 4, 2018 at 3:10 PM MST

Yesterday, a part of the yield curve inverted. The interest rate on 5-year treasuries fell slightly below the interest rate on three-year treasuries. This has spooked some people, because an inversion in the yield curve is sometimes regarded as the harbinger of a recession.

So, are we headed for a recession?

Campbell Harvey says no. He's a finance professor at Duke, and the man who first demonstrated that the yield curve can act as a recession predictor. Today on the Indicator, he tells us why there's no need to panic about a recession — or at least not yet.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia

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