In this note we find that after a given monetary policy surprise, primary dealers--key intermediaries in interest rate markets--tend to adjust their positions in the U.S. Treasury market and their exposures to interest rates more when the prevailing level of policy uncertainty is low than when...

Corporate bond spreads and the slope of the Treasury yield curve (that is, the term spread) are two financial indicators that are especially informative about the likelihood of an economic downturn over a medium-term horizon