In Search of Leading Indicator Property of Yield Spread for India: An Approach Based on Quantile and Wavelet Regression

Abstract

The leading indicator ability of yield spread for future output growth and inflation is tested for India. Using the yields on securities with maturities ten years and three months to construct yield spread, we study the predictive power of yield spread for output growth and inflation. Our results based on regression of future inflation and output on yield spreads indicate that there is no information in the yield spread about future economic activity and inflation in India. Further, the predictive power of yield spread is analyzed over different quantiles of inflation and output growth using quantile regression; we find that there is again no evidence of predictive information in the yield spreads. Using multiscale wavelet based regression, predictive power is however unveiled at higher time scales for output growth only.