Forecasting and the Recession?

Here's something of interest to those of you involved in something called the Fed Challenge. But it's of equal interest to rest of us, or should be.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has published a research article that uses the yield curve as a lead indicator for economic performance (recession length?). According to that article and data released yesterday by the New York Fed, the chance that the economy may have bottomed looks pretty good. I don't pretend to be an expert on the model or the data, but I'm encouraged. It's one more piece in my personal puzzle that is starting to make a clear picture.

Thanks to Mark Perry for the link.