4  See Ben S. Bernanke (2005), “The Global Saving Glut and the U.S. Current Account Deficit,” Sandridge Lecture delivered at a meeting of the Virginia Association of Economics, Richmond, Va., March 10, www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/default.htm. BIS Review 23/2007  1  three decades, often dubbed the “Great Moderation,” may well have trimmed real term premiums relative to their past levels.
Let’s now consider possible reasons for relatively low nominal far-forward rates and, as a consequence, relatively flat (or in some cases) inverted yield curves.