Business-Cycle Durations and Postwar Stabilization of the U.S. Economy
Average postwar expansions are twice as long as prewar expansions and contractions are one-half as long. This paper investigates three possible explanations. The first explanation is that shocks to the economy have been smaller in the postwar period. The second explanation is that the composition of output has shifted from very cyclical sectors to less cyclical sectors. The third explanation is that the apparent stabilization is largely spurious and is caused by differences in the way that prewar and postwar business-cycle reference dates were chosen by the National Bureau of Economic Research The evidence presented in this paper favors this third explanation. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 84 (1994)
Issue (Month): 1 (March)
Pages: 24-46
| Handle: | RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:84:y:1994:i:1:p:24-46 |
| Contact details of provider: | Web page: https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ Email: More information through EDIRC
|
| Order Information: | Web: https://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html |
References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Gerhard Bry & Charlotte Boschan, 1971. "Cyclical Analysis of Time Series: Selected Procedures and Computer Programs," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bry_71-1.
- Wesley Clair Mitchell, 1927. "Business Cycles: The Problem and Its Setting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number mitc27-1.
- Robert G. King & Charles I. Plosser, 1989.
"Real business cycles and the test of the Adelmans,"
Proceedings,
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
- King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I., 1994. "Real business cycles and the test of the Adelmans," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 405-438, April.
- King, R.G. & Plosser, C.I., 1989. "Real Business Cycles And The Test Of The Adelmans," RCER Working Papers 204, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
- Robert G. King & Charles I. Plosser, 1989. "Real Business Cycles and the Test of the Adelmans," NBER Working Papers 3160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Balke, Nathan S & Gordon, Robert J, 1989. "The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 38-92, February.
- Robert J. Gordon, 1986. "The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord86-1.
- Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1992.
"Have Postwar Economic Fluctuations Been Stabilized?,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 993-1005, September.
- Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1991. "Have postwar economic fluctuations been stabilized?," Working Paper Series / Economic Activity Section 116, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
- Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1990. "Have postwar economic fluctuations been stabilized?," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 33, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
- J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984.
"The Changing Cyclical Variability of Economic Activity in the United States,"
NBER Working Papers
1450, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "The Changing Cyclical Variability of Economic Activity in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 679-734 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Martin Neil Baily, 1978. "Stabilization Policy and Private Economic Behavior," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 9(1), pages 11-60.
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:84:y:1994:i:1:p:24-46. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jane Voros)
or (Michael P. Albert)If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.