At the time of this writing, the U.S. economy had been growing for 117 consecutive months and is on track to break the record held by the 120-month 1990s tech-boom expansion. Everyone knows length, in and of itself, does not necessarily portend an impending downturn — Australia’s economy, for example, experienced 26 years of uninterrupted growth before going into a technical recession in 2017. But it is also not unreasonable for investors to be getting a little nervous. After all, everyone also knows what goes up must come down, eventually — e.g., Australia. And they want to be prepared for that eventuality.

As a result, infrastructure, which is often touted as a defensive asset class, is seeing increased capital flows as investors begin to add a bit of safety to their portfolios. According to IREI’s FundTracker database, capital inflows to the asset class — based on amount raised by closed-end funds reaching a final close — was at an all-time high this past year,