How to Depart Earlier From a Recession?

Empirical studies of economic growth across countries are abundant and rich in conclusions, some of them widely accepted. This is not the case, however, with the empirics of business cycles. Particularly, there exists little evidence explaining why some countries take more time than others recovering from economic downturns or recessions. This paper focuses on recessions. We are not interested, however, in the causes of recessions, but in the determinants of their length; thus, we study which economic variables accelerate/retard economic recovery. The results presented in this paper have direct policy implications, as they shed light on which variables can help shorten recessions. From the estimation of count-data models (Poisson and Negative Binomial) and seemingly unrelated regressions, we find clear evidence that more open economies with diversified exports experience shorter recessions. At the same time, the evidence seems to confirm a generally better performance of floating exchange rate regimes as compared to both hard and soft pegs. In the final draft of the paper, we will include institutional explanatory variables