To oversimplify, the first risk is that rates will remain low, and the second is that they will not. In particular, in an environment of persistently low returns, incentives may grow for some investors to engage in an unsafe “reach for yield” either through excessive use of leverage or through other forms of risk-taking.
My Board colleague Jeremy Stein recently discussed how this behavior may arise in some financial markets, including credit markets.14 Alternatively, we face a risk that longer-term rates will rise sharply at some point, imposing capital losses on holders of fixed-income instruments, including financial institutions.