The Taper Tantrum & The Recession of 2012/13

I admit this is a rather strange title for a post, but bear with me. Every once in a while I reflect back on the so-called "taper tantrum" event in the summer of 2013 when Fed Chair Ben Bernanke made an off-the-cuff remark that the FOMC was thinking of maybe slowing down the pace QE3 asset purchases (see here). The stock market had a temporary sell-off, which turned out to be no big deal. What I find more interesting is how long bond yields rose sharply and persistently. Even more interesting, real bond yields behaved in this manner--see the figure below.