Consider the below extract from an article based on a compilation of forecasts and year-ahead views from various strategists published in the final couple of months of 2022:

US interest-rate strategists mostly expect that Treasuries will extend their recent rally, dragging yields lower and steepening the curve in the second half of 2023 so long as labor market conditions soften and inflation ebbs. The most bullish forecasts among those published by primary dealer firms including predictions from Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and TD Securities anticipate that the Federal Reserve will cut its overnight benchmark in 2024. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which predicts that inflation will stay unacceptably high and that the US economy will avoid a deep recession, has the most bearish forecast.

(Treasury Strategists Expect Lower Yields, Steeper Curve in 2023, Bloomberg, 30 December 2022.)

After a string of 0.75 percentage points rate rises in 2022 and a shift to a 50 basis point increase in the final policy meeting of 2022 by the US Federal Reserve, financial markets expectations pointed to a less hawkish Fed and a looming recession. At the time of the publication of the article, the US Treasury yield curve was high and increasing at the short-end, but inverted over longer maturities.

(a) Comment on the possible explanations for this shape with reference to the various theories of the term structure of the interest rates as well as expectations of future macroeconomic conditions and policy responses. (b) Given the diverse year-ahead interest rate views of interest-rate strategists in the above extract, what do you think are the anticipated yield curves (towards the end of 2023) implied by the bullish and bearish forecasts?