Tag Archives: business cycle

NBER Eggheads Finally Proclaim End of Recession

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              The NBER‘s Business Cycle Dating Committee, of which I am a member, announced this morning that June 2009 was the trough of the recession that began in December 2007.    It was the longest recession since the 1930s.

              It is the fate of the Committee to be teased mercilessly every time we make one of our formal declarations of a turning point in the economy.   We get it from both directions:    We waited too late to call the end of the recession, or we did it too early.     (Occasionally someone makes both criticisms simultaneously!)   Even The Daily Show got in on the fun this time. read more

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NBER Committee Holds Off Declaring Recession’s 2009 End Until It is Sure

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The NBERBusiness Cycle Dating Committee this morning posted an announcement that it had met in person April 8 – an infrequent event – but that it had not yet decided to call the trough in the recession that began in December 2007.    The meeting has led to lots of questions from the press over the weekend, for stories that appeared today, and then more questions today in response to those stories.  Here are some of the questions that have come up the most often, and my own personal answers, speaking for myself and not the Committee of which I am a member. read more

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The Roller Coaster of Economic Indicators

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The economy has been on a roller coaster ride since the cyclical peak of December 2007. (See illustration.) The gradual slide of early 2008 turned into a terrifying freefall in the last quarter of 2008 (after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy) and the first quarter of 2009. Now the train is probably at the bottom of the roller coaster valley.

The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, represented by the first car in the train, was this morning reported to have risen for the seventh consecutive month in October. Similarly, consumer confidence is substantially improved relative to February (though it, like all economic statistics, has experienced some bumps in the ride). The important middle cars, which represent measures of aggregate output, probably reached bottom in the early summer, and then started back up.  The BEA’s advanced estimate for GDP growth in the third quarter was 3 ½ % . read more

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