Grammarly says hyphenating is necessary for a compound adjective before a noun as follows.
- The municipal government is funding a community-based education system.
- Wind-powered generators can be excellent sources of electricity.
- Many veterinarians find meat-fed cats to be quite healthy.
But when is hyphenating necessary for a compound noun? Grammarly recommends checking a dictionary.
Are there detailed guidelines if dictionaries say nothing? For example,
- Wikipedia: A flight-to-liquidity is a financial market phenomenon occurring when investors sell what they perceive to be less liquid or higher risk investments, and purchase more liquid investments instead, such as US Treasuries.
- Barron’s: Even gold is getting hit in the flight to liquidity, losing $13 to $1215.
- Bloomberg: In addition, there were few signs of a flight to liquidity within the asset class.
- MarketWatch: Gold prices on Wednesday dropped back to their lowest settlement since December, signaling a flight to liquidity by investors will continue to outweigh the metal’s traditional haven appeal as equities see another round of heavy losses on worries over the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Are the hyphens in the first Wikipedia example necessary?