Lending and the business cycle

Since I think tight mortgage lending has been the key variable holding back more healthy economic expansion, I have been watching some bank lending measures for signals of contraction.  I also think monetary policy is too tight because the Fed is using inflation measures that include a large amount of measured inflation that is due to the non-cash effect of owner-occupied rent inflation.  That high rent inflation is also a result of tight lending, which is keeping housing supply low.

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There is an interesting relationship between commercial and industrial lending and the yield curve.

Lending increases during an expansion, with a bit of a lag, so it has parallel movement over time with the yield curve (here, 10 year minus 2 year, inverted).  Commercial and industrial loans tend to grow the most when the yield curve is relatively flat.  Then, when the yield curve inverts, this seems to be correlated with economic contraction and a newly steep yield curve.

But, this relationship has changed recently.  The yield curve remained relatively steep even while C&I lending moved back to expansionary rates of growth.  I suppose this would commonly be explained with the incorrect idea that the Fed has been holding short term rates too low, and that has been the source of the steep yield curve.

I think the more accurate explanation is that when interest rates are low, the zero lower bound causes the yield curve slope to increase, because long term rates begin to act like at the money call options.  There is a sort of premium embedded in future rates.  So, from 2008-2012, the relationship is similar to the typical relationship, but the yield curve is unusually high (lower on the inverted chart).

Until QE3, lending was starting to slow down, and long term rates were declining because economic sentiment was declining.  QE3 turned that around.  The yield curve steepened, and with a bit of a lag, C&I loan growth recovered.

Since then, it appears as if the relationship has reversed.  The yield curve has flattened while C&I loan growth has declined.  The first part of this period is from the end of QE3.  QE3 had boosted growth, so the end of QE3 was somewhat contractionary, but by the end of QE3, the neutral short term interest rate had probably recovered to something close to 0%, whereas it had previously been negative.

Then, the Fed began to raise short term rates.  This has two contrary effects on the yield curve.  The first effect is that it pushes the base rate up from the zero lower bound, which causes the inflated effect on long term rates to decline.  In other words, long term rates start acting more like in the money call options, so the embedded premium is lower.  This flattens the yield curve.

To the extent that the Fed raises rates back above the neutral rate, this also will flatten the yield curve by pulling down economic sentiment.  Both of these things are happening at the same time, which is doubly flattening the yield curve.  One effect is caused by expansionary factors (a rising neutral rate) and the other effect is caused by contractionary factors (a rising policy rate).  So, the question is, what effect is most at work.

And, the fact that C&I lending growth has been declining suggests that monetary tightening has been too strong.  There are many economic measures that seem to be at fairly benign levels, so this hasn't been confirmed by other data, so I have been in sort of wait-and-see mode.  Inflation data also hasn't confirmed either thesis, as both backward looking (non-shelter) inflation and forward looking inflation have been fairly flat, even if backward looking non-shelter inflation has been quite low.

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I have had a bias for expecting the bear-reading of this situation to eventually play out, but recent lending has only complicated this, because suddenly, there has been a little bit of a spike in lending, and real estate lending has very slowly been growing for a little while already.  Is this a turnaround to new recovery, or is this a liquidity grab by corporations because nominal revenues are starting to weaken?  There isn't much evidence that things are bad enough to expect that to happen, so I have to wonder if this is part of a turnaround.

The mystery continues.