Like the 10-year yield, the 5- to 10-year forward rate shows a pronounced downward trend, falling almost 6 percentage points from 1990 to 2012. In the figure, the standard model line represents the conventional estimate of the expectations component in the forward rate that is obtained from the dynamic term structure model used in Wright (2011). The bias-corrected model line shows the expectations component obtained using the bias-corrected estimates detailed in Bauer, Rudebusch, and Wu (2013). Correcting for estimation bias makes a significant difference in this context. The standard model implies that far-ahead expectations of future short rates are extraordinarily stable with hardly any discernible trend. By contrast, the bias-corrected model results in a substantially more variable expectations component that shows a pronounced downward trend over the sample.