IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhma/92-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Business cycle durations and postwar stabilization of the U.S. economy

Author

Listed:
  • Mark W. Watson

Abstract

The average length of business cycle contractions in the United States fell from 20.5 months in the prewar period to 10.7 months in the postwar period. Similarly, the average length of business cycle expansions rose from 25.3 months in the prewar period to 49.9 months in the postwar period. This paper investigates three explanations for this apparent duration stabilization. The first explanation is that shocks to the economy have been smaller in the postwar period. This implies that duration stabilization should be present in both aggregate and sectoral output data. The second explanation is that the composition of output has shifted from sectors that are very cyclical, like manufacturing, to sectors that are less cyclical, like services. This would lead to increased stability in aggregate output even in the absence of increased stability in the individual 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 NBER. The evidence presented in this paper favors this third explanation.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Mark W. Watson, 1992. "Business cycle durations and postwar stabilization of the U.S. economy," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues 92-6, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhma:92-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Robert J. Gordon, 1986. "The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord86-1, January.
    3. 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.
    4. William Howard Shaw, 1947. "Value of Commodity Output since 1869," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number shaw47-1, January.
    5. 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.
    6. Gerhard Bry & Charlotte Boschan, 1971. "Foreword to "Cyclical Analysis of Time Series: Selected Procedures and Computer Programs"," NBER Chapters, in: Cyclical Analysis of Time Series: Selected Procedures and Computer Programs, pages -1, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Wesley Clair Mitchell, 1927. "Business Cycles: The Problem and Its Setting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number mitc27-1, January.
    10. 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, January.
    11. Victor Zarnowitz & Geoffrey H. Moore, 1986. "Major Changes in Cyclical Behavior," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 519-582, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McKay, Alisdair & Reis, Ricardo, 2008. "The brevity and violence of contractions and expansions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 738-751, May.
    2. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Business cycle fluctuations in us macroeconomic time series," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-64, Elsevier.
    3. Aiolfi, Marco & Catão, Luis A.V. & Timmermann, Allan, 2011. "Common factors in Latin America's business cycles," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 212-228, July.
    4. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Selgin, George & Lastrapes, William D. & White, Lawrence H., 2012. "Has the Fed been a failure?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 569-596.
    6. Christina D. Romer, 1999. "Changes in Business Cycles: Evidence and Explanations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 23-44, Spring.
    7. Dagum, Estela Bee, 2010. "Business Cycles and Current Economic Analysis/Los ciclos económicos y el análisis económico actual," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 28, pages 577-594, Diciembre.
    8. Paul Cashin & Sam Ouliaris, 2004. "Key Features of Australian Business Cycles," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 39-58, March.
    9. Andrew Filardo & Marco Jacopo Lombardi & Marek Raczko, 2018. "Measuring financial cycle time," BIS Working Papers 755, Bank for International Settlements.
    10. Viv B. Hall & C. John McDermott, 2007. "Regional business cycles in New Zealand: Do they exist? What might drive them?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(2), pages 167-191, June.
    11. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Diebolt, Claude & Ferrara, Laurent, 2015. "A new monthly chronology of the US industrial cycles in the prewar economy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 3-9.
    12. Emanuel Mönch & Harald Uhlig, 2005. "Towards a Monthly Business Cycle Chronology for the Euro Area," Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2005(1), pages 43-69.
    13. Travis Berge & Òscar Jordà, 2013. "A chronology of turning points in economic activity: Spain, 1850–2011," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 1-34, March.
    14. Candelon, Bertrand & Metiu, Norbert & Straetmans, Stefan, 2013. "Disentangling economic recessions and depressions," Discussion Papers 43/2013, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    15. Thomas L. Hogan & Daniel J. Smith, 2022. "War, money & economy: Inflation and production in the Fed and pre-Fed periods," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 15-37, March.
    16. Yýlmaz Akdi & Serdar Varlik & Hakan Berument, 2018. "Cycle Duration in Production with Periodicity – Evidence from Turkey," International Econometric Review (IER), Econometric Research Association, vol. 10(2), pages 24-32, September.
    17. Nathan S. Balke & Mark A. Wynne, 1993. "Recessions and recoveries in real business cycle models: do real business cycle models generate cyclical behavior?," Working Papers 9322, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    18. Martínez-García, Enrique & Grossman, Valerie & Mack, Adrienne, 2015. "A contribution to the chronology of turning points in global economic activity (1980–2012)," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 170-185.
    19. Enrique A. López-Enciso, 2017. "Dos tradiciones en la medición del ciclo: historia general y desarrollos en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 986, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    20. Mr. Paul Cashin, 2004. "Caribbean Business Cycles," IMF Working Papers 2004/136, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycles;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedhma:92-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.