Fiscal dominance is an interpretive regime-risk question, not a directly observed metric. The dashboard separates observable fiscal pressure from Treasury market-functioning stress, policy-constraint proxies, and credibility signals.
| Term | Type | Definition | Usage discipline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal dominance | Interpretive regime concept | A condition where monetary policy choices become constrained by fiscal financing needs or market-functioning stress. | Reserved for the top-level regime-risk question. No single dashboard metric is labeled as proof of dominance. |
| Fiscal dominance risk index | Rule-based assessment | A conservative composite of fiscal pressure, credibility, and Treasury market-functioning indicators. | Reported as Low, Elevated, or High. It is an index reading, not a regime declaration. |
| Fiscal pressure | Computed category | Debt-service burden, deficit persistence, and debt-stock pressure observable in public data. | Used for interest, deficit, and debt metrics before making any broader fiscal-dominance inference. |
| Treasury market functioning | Market category | Signals about risk transfer, volatility, supply absorption, and market stress in Treasuries. | Used in primary UI and methods copy instead of colloquial market-structure shorthand. |
| Constraint evidence | Interpretive evidence bucket | Evidence that policy choices or market responses are constrained by financing or market-functioning conditions. | The current dashboard uses proxies; direct policy-stance and balance-sheet indicators are planned for a later release. |
| Credibility and expectations | Market category | Inflation compensation and term-premium gauges that can reflect confidence, uncertainty, and risk premia. | Used as supporting context and never as standalone fiscal-dominance evidence. |
| Dashboard label | Formal name | Source series or source rows | Method ID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interest outlays / receipts (TTM) | Interest outlays / federal receipts, trailing twelve months | Treasury MTS Table 1 receipts and MTS Table 3 interest-related outlay rows | FD-AR-01 |
| TTM deficit / GDP | Federal budget deficit, trailing twelve months, percent of nominal GDP | Treasury MTS Table 1 deficit and FRED GDP | FD-AR-02 |
| Debt held by the public / GDP | Federal debt held by the public as percent of gross domestic product | FRED FYGFGDQ188S | FD-AR-03 |
| 10Y Treasury term premium | 10-year Treasury term premium, ACM estimate | Federal Reserve Bank of New York ACM term premium data | FD-CE-01 |
| 5y5y inflation expectations | 5-year, 5-year forward inflation expectation rate | FRED T5YIFR | FD-CE-02 |
| 10Y yield-change volatility | 20-day annualized volatility of daily 10-year Treasury yield changes | FRED DGS10, with Treasury yield-curve XML fallback | FD-TM-01 |
| # | Metric | What it captures | Transformation | Thresholds | Pitfalls and caveats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Interest outlays / receipts (TTM)Fiscal pressure | Debt-service burden relative to federal receipts. | TTM interest outlays / TTM receipts |
0: <12%; 1: 12-20%; 2: >20% | Computed from MTS interest-related outlay rows; debt composition and maturity structure matter. |
| 2 | TTM deficit / GDPFiscal arithmetic | Baseline financing need and primary balance pressure. | TTM deficit / nominal GDP |
Displayed as context; trend and persistence drive commentary. | One-off policy programs and GDP denominator effects can distort month-to-month reads. |
| 3 | Debt held by the public / GDPFiscal arithmetic | Stock of debt to be absorbed or refinanced over time. | Debt held by public / GDP |
Displayed as context; not sufficient for dominance by itself. | Debt/GDP is a stock; path, maturity profile, and investor base matter. |
| 4 | 10Y yield-change volatilityTreasury market functioning | Open proxy for Treasury market stress in place of proprietary volatility indices. | 20d annualized std dev of daily DGS10 changes in bp |
0: below median; 1: median-80th percentile; 2: above 80th for 30+ days | Realized volatility is backward-looking and may miss liquidity stress before prices move. |
| 5 | 10Y Treasury term premiumCredibility and expectations | Compensation for duration and uncertainty beyond expected short rates. | NY Fed ACM 10Y estimate |
0: stable/falling; 1: modest rise; 2: sustained rise with expectation drift | Model estimates revise and are sensitive to specification. |
| 6 | 5y5y inflation expectationsCredibility and expectations | Market-implied longer-run inflation expectations proxy. | FRED T5YIFR |
Used with term premium; no standalone dominance call. | Inflation compensation includes risk premia and liquidity effects. |
| 7 | Constraint evidence proxyInterpretive gate | Whether market-functioning and credibility proxies are consistent with rising policy constraints. | term premium + inflation compensation + yield volatility |
0: weak proxy evidence; 1: mixed; 2: broad stress across proxy indicators | Current release does not yet include direct policy-rate or Fed balance-sheet indicators. |
Each v0.3.0 chart series carries explainer fields in data/dashboard.json.
The UI info control will render these fields in a later chart UX release.
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
what_this_is | Plain-English definition of the metric. |
what_it_measures | Observable quantity or proxy captured by the series. |
calculation | Formula or source transform needed to reproduce the chart. |
why_it_matters | Reason the metric belongs in the risk assessment. |
source | Source dataset, series, or source row names. |
update_cadence | Expected refresh frequency for the source and dashboard series. |
unit | Displayed unit and scale. |
caveats | Common misreadings and limits of inference. |
The conservative composite scores six live public indicators on 0-2 bands: interest outlays / receipts, deficit / GDP, debt / GDP, term premium, 5y5y inflation expectations, and realized 10Y yield volatility. Weighted components are normalized to 0-100 for the dashboard.
The 2D map separates fiscal pressure from constraint-evidence proxies. The x-axis increases from weak to strong constraint evidence, and the y-axis increases from low to high fiscal pressure. The top-right quadrant is the only quadrant labeled dominance risk.