Soft landing.
A central bank brings inflation down without causing a recession.
Rarely happens cleanly.
Why it matters: The discussion of it is the entire macro debate of any tightening cycle. Reprices duration assets every time the forecast shifts.
Technical and plain English.
Soft landing. A monetary policy outcome in which a central bank successfully reduces inflation toward its target via restrictive monetary policy (rate hikes, balance sheet runoff) without triggering a recession, significant rise in unemployment, or material financial-market instability. Contrasted with a "hard landing" (recession-induced disinflation). Historically rare in post-WWII Fed history; the canonical successful example is the 1994-1995 Greenspan cycle. Consensus odds for any given cycle: 25-40%.
The Fed wants to slow inflation. To do that they raise interest rates, which slows the economy. The trick is slowing it just enough that prices stop rising, but not so much that the economy crashes into a recession. A soft landing is when they pull off that trick. They almost never do. Greenspan did it in 1994. Everyone else mostly causes recessions.
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